The Madras High Court Bench here has directed Tiruchi Regional Passport Officer (RPO) to consider a plea made by an individual to issue passports to two minor boys by mentioning his name as their stepfather and to his only daughter by mentioning the name of his second wife as her stepmother.
Justice V. Bharathidasan directed the RPO to take a decision in the light of an order passed by Justice V. Ramasubramanian on January 23 last directing the Ministry of External Affairs to incorporate suitable columns in passport applications to mention the names of either biological, adoptive or step-parents or all.
‘Amend clause’
Then the judge had also directed the Ministry to amend clause 4.4 of the Passport Manual, which states that names of step-parents could not be written in the passports of children since the relationship of a child with the biological parents subsists even after the latter obtain divorce legally as per laws applicable to them.
The clause also stated that the column in passport applications, meant for mentioning the names of an applicant’s parents, should not be left blank. The applicant must necessarily mention the name of biological parents.
However, it permitted mentioning the names of step-parents as legal guardian if they had appointed so by a civil court.
Taking exception to such a clause in the Passport Manual, Mr. Justice Ramasubramanian had said: “If one goes strictly by law, the prayer in the writ petition cannot be allowed. But that will leave the future of a minor girl completely in dark. Cases of this nature are going to increase in the coming days, and hence when the Government had failed to take note of the societal changes to modify the law suitably, the court is duty-bound to issue appropriate directions without encroaching into the territory of the legislature.”
In so far as the present case before Mr. Justice Bharathidasan was concerned, the petitioner had claimed to have divorced his first wife by pronouncing talaq thrice. He claimed that the woman had accepted it and a divorce deed was executed in August 2014 before he took custody of their only daughter born in May 2010.
