Kerala High Court: In a petition filed by an aggrieved single mother before this Court regarding the inaction on the part of the respondents to issue passport to her five year old daughter born out of a troubled ‘live-in relationship’, a bench of A.V. Ramakrishna Pillai J., directed the respondents to issue Indian Passport to the petitioner’s minor daughter on humanitarian ground.
In the instant case, the petitioner who was born to Indian parents in U.S. and is an Overseas citizen of India, is seeking issuance of Indian passport to her daughter born out of a troublesome ‘live-in relationship’ with a native of Bangalore. The counsel for the petitioner A. Rajasimhan, contended that the denial of the passport to the daughter for want of Indian passport of the petitioner is illegal, unnecessary and unwarranted as per Rule IVA (3)(b) of Schedule III of the Passport Rules, 1980. The counsel for the respondent N. Nagaresh, contended that once the citizenship of the petitioner’s daughter is established, they will be in a position to issue passport to the child.
The Court observed that the marriage of the petitioner and child’s father was not registered and they got separated after the child was born during ‘live-in-relationship’. The Court noted that ‘every person is born with a domicile of origin which is received by him/her at his/her birth ‘and ‘the domicile of origin of every person of legitimate birth is the country in which at the time of his/her birth, his father was domiciled’. The Court further noted that the right to life includes the right of the children to grow with the parents and to be in the company of the parents, and the denial of the same would be violation of natural justice of the petitioner as well as her daughter, and would also be detrimental to the psychological growth and development of the child.
The Court found that by virtue of Article 8 of the Constitution read with Section 7 A of the Citizenship Act, the competency of the petitioner to approach this Court cannot be challenged as she is deemed to be a citizen of India, and accordingly directed the respondents to issue Indian passport to the child holding that the petitioner is a single parent and there is no one to look after the child in the event of her going to U.S. and therefore, the situation demands a humanitarian consideration and it would be a travesty of justice if passport is denied to the petitioner’s minor daughter on hyper technical grounds. Sindhu George v. Passport Officer, 2015 SCC Online Ker 3685 , decided on 10.04.2015
