New Delhi, Oct 26 (IANS): The Delhi High Court has asked the Central government to file its response on a petition filed by a woman seeking directions to the government to provide a passport to her son who is stranded abroad for the past eight years due to non-possession of a valid travel document.

A single-judge bench of the High Court presided by Justice Navin Chawla issued notice to the Ministry of External Affairs over the petition filed by the woman and has slated the matter for further hearing on December 7.

In her petition, the woman claims that her son's passport was damaged when he was in Italy and he had applied for a duplicate one in 2012 which has not been issued to him.

He moved to Paris to find work as without a valid passport he was finding it difficult to get work in Italy, her plea said while adding that the Indian consulate in Italy had refused to issue him a passport as a dowry case was pending against him here.

The woman said that she, her husband and her son were falsely implicated in a dowry case by her then daughter-in-law in 2009.

Her husband passed away during the pendency of the case and her son was declared a proclaimed offender as he could not come back to India due to lack of a valid passport, the petition has claimed.

She was acquitted in the case in 2016 and meanwhile, her ex-daughter-in-law obtained a divorce in 2011 and got married again, the plea said.