Passport verification without home visit

The Telegraph, June 27, 2018

Calcutta: The ministry of external affairs has restricted the role of police verification of passport applicants to finding out if anyone has a criminal background.

The new format for verification does not require the designated officer to visit every applicant at the given address to confirm his or her bona fides.

The change has been communicated to the director-general of police in Bengal, which is a laggard in passport verification. Till April, 46,967 passport applications in Bengal were awaiting police verification, the highest in India. Compared to the national average of 10 to 15 days, the state police take 41 days on an average to send a verification report against each application.

According to the officials in the ministry, this will not only reduce the time taken to conclude the verification process but also eliminate the possibility of harassment that applicants allegedly face at the hands of the police.

"It may be noted from the police verification questionnaire that the police verification report could be confined only to the criminality verification of the applicant. The police officials are required to give the police verification report in the revised format," states a letter dated May 21 sent from the office of the chief passport officer of India, Arun Kumar Chatterjee, to the state director general of police.

The target date for the new process to become operational was June 1.

Till a few weeks ago, it was mandatory for the police to visit the applicant's house, match his/her physical appearance with the photograph appended to the application and click his/her photograph on a tablet as proof of verification.

The common allegation against Bengal police is that they either seek irrelevant documents to harass applicants or sometimes directly or indirectly demand a bribe. An official in the passport office said many adverse reports are based on the applicant not being home during the verifying officer's visit.

Based on the new notification, the police will have to file a report based on six points covering the criminal background of an applicant, if any. "There is no ban on carrying out a physical verification. But we recommend that police should do it (physical verification) only for those (applicants) whose details arouse suspicion," a senior official in the ministry of external affairs told Metro from Delhi.

Golok Kumar Simli, principal consultant and head of the Passport Seva Project's technology wing, said the new process would reduce the police's workload and ensure that applicants whose papers are in order don't face any trouble.

But the procedural change has raised questions within the police force about how they are supposed to give a clean chit to an applicant without physically verifying the address and checking all documents.

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