Finally the case has landed in the High Court. Last week, the high court directed the state government to take a decision on the application of Engineer Abdul Rashid seeking a passport.
Rashid is a lawmaker representing Langate in the state legislature. As the state police did not clear him for getting a passport, the lawmaker approached the high court that has given the state government three weeks time to take a final call on the lawmaker’s request!
Mr Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir who disposed off the petition, observed that the petitioner should be told the reason if government decides against granting a passport to him. The lawmaker had been issued a ‘Tatkal’ passport with year’s validity. However, a permanent passport was denied on grounds of some negative verification report.
Rashid, an engineer by profession, in the wake of 2008 polls gave up his government job and decided to contest. He won hands down defeating the NC veteran Sharief-ud-Din Shariq. All along he has remained very vocal and resorted to a number of actions on the civil liberty front that included getting police to investigate the phenomenon of forced labour by government forces in his area. Later, he hogged the limelight when he submitted a resolution seeking clemency to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru which was never taken up.
During the assembly sessions, Engineer was marshaled out many times. But that did not reduce his importance as a lawmaker. “I am asking for the reason for the denial of my passport,” Rashid told reporters after the court order. “If India does not consider MLAs trust worthy, what mindset it reflects (sic)?” He sees denial of passport as vindictiveness of the administration.
Rashid’s battle for passport offers an idea about how the state is using passport as a weapon. At one stage there were around 60 thousand families that were in the negative list of the police intelligence – not eligible for foreign travel. Families who had any kind of relationship with the militants or a separatist activist cannot get a passport and at times it includes the people who intend to travel for Haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Off late, however, the government has been insisting that the system is overhauled and people generally will not be denied the facility. Early this month the government informed the state legislature that against 167004 applications for passport that police received in last two years, it has already cleared 130326. But those not cleared include Engineer Rashid.
