Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai

Mumbai, Feb 24: Proclaiming the present manual as old, the Bombay HC today asked a petitioner's advocate for a list of issues that needed to be looked into and changed in order to make the manual more accommodating to the people.

The issue came to the notice of the High court as an unwed mother approached, seeking a passport for her four year old daughter. The child had not been given a passport yet as the particulars of the father's name which is a mandatory field was one that they could not fill. Justices V M Kanade and A R Joshi, questioned if it was fair that a single parent be denied the right to a passport for their child in an age that accepts live-in relationships.

Advocate Moray had in an earlier hearing asked the court to direct the passport authorities to eliminate the need for a person to put in the names of their biological father in specific cases.

The specific cases that the advocate referred to were the ones that children of unwed mothers or rape survivors, biological fathers who had forsaken their children or given over the custody solely to the mother or even cases where the father's name was one that the child did not have an access to.

The mother was one among three such parties who wanted passports for their children but had been denied this facility for the fact that they were unable to provide all the details of the child's biological parents. The authorities representing the passports department said that the manual was being revised to based on the various laws and verdicts passed down upon it.

The bench proclaimed the manual to be old but conceded that the authorities concerns that a person could apply for a passport under multiple names, as quite plausible. The HC asked the petitioners legal representative for a comprehensive list on the common problems faced by people when applying for a passport. It also asked the authorities concerned to formulate questions on their application forms that would conform to the changes that have taken place in society - single parents, divorces, live-in relationships and other such.