Passport Cannot Be Withheld on Adverse CID Report Alone When FIR Case Is No Longer Pending: J&K High Court

The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court directed passport authorities to decide a 78-year-old's application afresh, holding that a decades-old CID report tied to a closed FIR is no basis for refusal.

A 78-year-old petitioner from Srinagar spent years trying to obtain a passport, only to have his applications blocked by an adverse police verification report rooted in an FIR registered against him in 1988. On 9 September 2026, Justice Rajnesh Oswal, sitting singly at the Srinagar bench of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, disposed of Mohammad Ramzan Wani v. Union of India and Ors. (WP(C) 3306/2023) by directing the Regional Passport Office and the Union of India to process Wani's passport application within three months, expressly setting aside the adverse CID verification report as a standalone ground for refusal. The court's reasoning rested on a court-sourced fact: the 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Srinagar, had confirmed that no case arising out of FIR No. 111/1988 was pending before it.

The Passport Applications and the Adverse CID Report

Mohammad Ramzan Wani first applied for a passport through the Regional Passport Office (Respondent No. 3). That application was rejected on the basis of a police verification report dated 26 December 2022, which carried adverse remarks. He applied again online; his second application was returned with the endorsement that the police verification report was not clear and the application was under review.

The adverse report traced back to FIR No. 111/1988 registered at Police Station, Safa Kadal, Srinagar, under Section 307 of the Ranbir Penal Code. A charge sheet in that matter had been filed before the 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Srinagar, on 5 August 1988. The CID Headquarters forwarded a factual report to the Regional Passport Officer under letter No. CID/PP/factual/22/126793 dated 26 December 2022, flagging Wani's involvement in that 1988 case.

The Regional Passport Office then issued Show Cause Notice No. SCN/322233500/23 dated 11 February 2023, asking Wani to produce either a no-objection certificate or an acquittal order from the concerned court. Wani did not respond to that notice, and the matter proceeded to litigation.

What the Passport Authorities Argued

Respondents No. 1 and 3 — the Union of India and the Regional Passport Office — maintained that the CID verification report dated 26 December 2022 clearly showed Wani's involvement in FIR No. 111/1988, and that he had been informed accordingly. They insisted he had failed to respond to the show cause notice requiring him to obtain a no-objection or acquittal order from the court where the charge sheet was filed.

Respondent No. 4, representing the CID, took a narrower position. It stated that its role was limited to forwarding a factual verification report to the passport-issuing authority. Whether to grant or withhold relief was, in its submission, “in the exclusive domain of the passport issuing authority.”

The Court Inquiry: Whether Any Case Remained Pending

The critical development came from within the judicial system itself. In an order dated 27 August 2026, the court noted a report from the 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Srinagar, which confirmed that no case was pending in relation to FIR No. 111/1988 of Police Station, Safa Kadal, in the matter of State v. Mohammad Ramzan Wani.

Justice Oswal treated this report as determinative. If no charge sheet arising out of FIR No. 111/1988 remained pending before the competent court, there was no continuing criminal proceeding that could justify the passport office's refusal. The adverse CID report, whatever it stated about events from 1988, could not stand as an independent bar to passport issuance once the underlying case had ceased to exist before the court.

The Court's Reasoning

The bench drew a clear line between what a CID verification report can establish and what it cannot do on its own. A factual report flagging past involvement in an FIR is one input in the passport authority's decision-making process — it is not, by itself, a conclusive disqualification. The CID had itself acknowledged this by stating that the decision to grant or withhold a passport lay with the issuing authority, not with the intelligence wing.

With the 3rd Additional Sessions Judge's report confirming no pending proceedings under FIR No. 111/1988, the premise for the show cause notice issued in February 2023 — that there was an active court case requiring a no-objection or acquittal order — no longer held. The court held that Respondents No. 1 and 3 could not refuse to issue the passport “merely on the basis of the verification report submitted by the respondent No. 4 regarding involvement of petitioner in case FIR No. 111/1988.”

The judgment did not hold that an adverse CID report is always irrelevant; it held that where the court of record confirms no case is pending on the underlying FIR, the report of past involvement cannot alone sustain a refusal. The passport authorities retain the discretion to consider any other lawful impediment that may exist.

Order

Justice Rajnesh Oswal disposed of WP(C) 3306/2023 on 9 September 2026 with the following direction: Respondents No. 1 and 3 are to decide Mohammad Ramzan Wani's passport application without reference to the adverse police verification report concerning FIR No. 111/1988, provided there is no other legal impediment. The order must be passed within three months from the date a certified copy of the judgment is made available to those respondents.

The petition was accordingly disposed of.