The Punjab & Haryana High Court, in what was a dispute between two regional passport authorities and Permanent Lok Adalat, has held that the latter has no jurisdiction to order the passport officer to issue a passport.
Justice Vinod S. Bhardwaj was hearing two writ petitions filed by two Regional Passport Officers against the orders of Permanent Lok Adalats. The question for consideration before the court was whether the issuance of passports comes within the ambit of “immigration services” and does the Permanent Lok Adalat have the jurisdiction to order the same under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.
What led up to this question is the passing of orders by the Permanent Lok Adalat Ludhiana and Sangrur in similar matters. Both of them issued the direction to the respective regional passport officers to issue the passport to the applicants therein. Since the question of law was the same in both matters, the High Court has given its verdict through a common judgement. Let’s first have a look at the background.
Brief Facts of the Case:
The Permanent Lok Adalat passed an award in favour of the applicants therein, whereby the petitioners herein were directed to prepare and dispatch the passport of the applicants within 7 days from passing of the order, failing which the officers shall attract a penalty of Rs.1000 per day of delay. To this an execution application was also filed by the applicants therein, in the order of which, the salary of property of the concerned officers was ordered to be attached.
Prayer before the Hon’ble High Court:
The petitioners approached the Hon’ble High Court with the prayer to set aside the award passed by the Lok Adalat and to further set aside the order passed in the execution application. In addition, it was also prayed that it be declared and held that the Permanent Lok Adalat is not competent to entertain the disputes concerning issuance of passports and any other aspects relating to the Passports Act, 1967.
Arguments on behalf of the Parties:
Petitioners:
At the very outset, the petitioners herein referred to the Section 22 (A) (b) of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. It was contented that the said section finds no mention of anything related to the Passport or Regional Passport office or the Ministry of External Affairs. A further reliance was placed on Sections 5, 6, 11 and 17 of the Passports Act, 1967. And since Section 17 of the Act says that the Passport shall remain the sole property of the Government of India, it was argued that the Central Government had not passed any notification in the regard and thus, the Adalat was wrong in passing the order for issuance of the passport. In addition to the technical points, the petitioners raised another argument that a passport is issued after proper scrutiny of the documents and even the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs and the local police all work in a tandem to see if the application for issuance of a passport is to be allowed or rejected since the security and reputation of the country is also at play.
Respondents:
The Respondent herein brough into picture a notification of the State government of Punjab of the year 2018 whereby immigration services were brough into the definition of Public Utility Services under Section22 (A) (b) of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. It was thus argued that the Utility Court was absolutely right in passing the award in their favour.
What did the Court Say?
The court went on to express its views on the term “immigration.” It held that the term broadly refers to the process of getting out of moving to a country. And this could be for any reason like study, work or even settle. The court further said that issuing visas for foreign nationals, providing residency or work permits, processing citizenship applications and asylum and deportation service are some of the services involved in the process of immigration.
And when it came to defining the meaning of passport, the Court held that the passport is a document which could used to prove the citizenship and as a form of identification as well. It further said that a passport is what one needs to travel to international destinations.
Thus, the court came to a conclusion in a common judgement that immigration services and passport are no synonyms and that they are governed by different laws altogether. Anything that concerns the passports is dealt with under the Passports Act, 1967. And on the other hand, immigration is governed by a slew of statues. These are the Citizenship Act, 1955, the Foreigners Act, 1946 so on and so forth.
It was also held that the issuance of a passport is not a service and that the passport officer is not a service provider. It was rather held to be the function of sovereign. The court further said that the one who seeks to have a passport is not a consumer either. And with this, it was held that when the core activity involves a non-commercial, sovereign function, it could not satisfy the requirement of a Public Utility Service.
In the light of above facts and arguments, it was opined by the court that the Permanent Lok Adalat did not have the jurisdiction to order the issuance of a passport as the same does not fall under the definition of “immigration services.”
And at the end of it all, the court held that the Permanent Lok Adalat was not right in passing the award and thus, set it aside and allowed the appeal.
