The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that an inadvertent mistake in mentioning a divorced spouse’s name in a passport application does not amount to “suppression of material information” under the Passports Act, 1967, and cannot be a ground for revoking the passport. In a judgment delivered on August 25, 2025, Justice Harsh Bunger set aside the orders of the Regional Passport Office, Chandigarh, and the appellate authority, which had revoked a woman’s passport, and directed the authorities to issue her a new one.
Background of the Case
The petitioner was married in 2000 and obtained a passport in 2005 which correctly listed her spouse’s name. The couple subsequently divorced by a decree dated April 2, 2011.
In 2015, when her passport was due for renewal, the petitioner applied for a re-issue through a travel agent. A new passport was issued on May 26, 2015, but it erroneously carried the name of her former husband as her spouse.
The petitioner remarried on November 19, 2023. Shortly after, she applied to the passport authorities to have her current husband’s name endorsed on her passport. However, the passport office received a complaint from her second husband, stating that she had obtained her 2015 passport by falsely mentioning her former husband as her spouse despite their divorce in 2011.
Following the complaint, the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Chandigarh, issued a Show Cause Notice to the petitioner on January 21, 2025.
Arguments and Departmental Action
In her response, the petitioner submitted a self-declaration admitting the error. She explained, “I got the services of Passport renewal from some unknown travel agent in the year 2015 and got [a] Passport… issued from Chandigarh… with my previous spouse name… whereas I got divorced from him in the year 2011.” She attributed the mistake to a “lack of awareness of Passport Rules” and stated, “I feel extremely sorry for this mistake.”
However, on January 29, 2025, the RPO, Chandigarh, passed an order revoking her passport under Section 10(3)(b) of the Passports Act, 1967, on the ground that “the passport was obtained by the suppression/wrong information provided by the holder.”
The petitioner filed an appeal before the Joint Secretary and Chief Passport Officer, New Delhi (the Appellate Authority). The appeal was dismissed on March 27, 2025. The appellate order observed, “It is evident that appellant obtained passport… by suppressing her marital status and mentioning her divorced husband’s name as spouse name.” While dismissing the appeal, the authority granted her liberty to apply for a fresh passport, “keeping in view the appellant’s occupational needs.” Aggrieved by these orders, the petitioner filed a writ petition before the High Court.
Court’s Analysis and Interpretation of Law
Justice Harsh Bunger framed the central legal question as “whether mentioning of petitioner’s previous husband’s name, as against the column ‘name of spouse’ in the passport application, amounts to suppression of material information or giving wrong information so as to attract Section 10 (3) (b) of the 1967 Act.”
The Court began by analyzing the relevant legal provisions. It noted that the power to revoke a passport under Section 10(3)(b) is discretionary, as the term used is “may.” Furthermore, both Section 10(3)(b) and Section 12(1)(b) (which prescribes penalties) require that the suppression of information or furnishing of false information must be done “with a view to obtaining a passport.”
In a key observation, the Court held that for information to be considered “material,” its correct disclosure must have been a ground for the passport authority to refuse the passport in the first place under Section 6(2) of the Act. The Court stated, “the information which is suppressed or which is wrongly/falsely given; must be such that had that information been correctly disclosed, in that eventuality the passport authority would have refused the issuance of passport to such applicant.”
Examining the grounds for refusal listed in Section 6(2) of the Act—which include concerns over national security, sovereignty, pendency of criminal cases, and public interest—the Court found that “there is no mention as regards suppression or wrong information as regards ‘marital status of an applicant’.”
The judgment also referred to Schedule III of the Passport Rules, 1980, which classifies “inadvertent” suppression of information regarding marital status or spouse’s name as a “minor” offence, punishable with a nominal fine of Rs. 500. This, the Court reasoned, further indicates that such an error is not considered grave enough to warrant revocation.
Applying these legal principles to the facts, the Court found the petitioner’s explanation that the error was made by a travel agent to be “plausible.” The Court highlighted two crucial factors: first, “there is no material on record that the petitioner has either misused or gained any undue benefit on account of mentioning name of the previous spouse,” and second, her former husband had submitted a statement confirming it was a “bona fide oversight” and that he had “no grievance.”
The Court found the reasoning of the Appellate Authority to be inadequate, noting it “merely mentioned that since the petitioner’s passport has been revoked by the Passport Officer, the same cannot be re-used for travel; therefore, there is no occasion to review the decision.”
Decision of the Court
Concluding that the passport authorities had “erred in law and fact,” the High Court set aside the RPO’s revocation order of January 29, 2025, and the Appellate Authority’s order of March 27, 2025.
As the passport in question had already expired on May 25, 2025, during the pendency of the litigation, the Court directed the passport authorities to issue a new passport to the petitioner with the correct particulars within three weeks from the date she supplies the required information.
