MADURAI: Observing that modern jurisprudence practices reformation rather than condemning an individual for eternity, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently granted relief to a man, whose passport was impounded nine years ago after it was found that he had given false particulars.
Justice GR Swaminathan directed the Madurai passport authorities to consider the man's application and issue a passport to him, provided there is no other impediment and subject to fulfilment of usual formalities.
The order was passed on a petition filed by S Chandran against the cancellation of his passport in 2015. Chandran obtained a passport in 1994. He was working as a mason in Singapore. After the expiry of his passport in 2014, he applied for renewal through an agent. However, his agent gave false particulars to speed up the process and the same got revealed during a police inquiry, leading to the cancellation of his passport, Chandran claimed.
Though the judge observed that there is no fault in the action taken by the authorities, he noted that the petitioner has been without a passport for almost nine years.
"Obviously his life and career have been affected. Even if the petitioner had committed a mistake, he cannot be condemned forever. The biblical concept of eternal damnation goes ill with the reformatory trend in modern jurisprudence," the judge observed and directed the petitioner to submit a fresh application with correct particulars, with further direction to the authorities to consider the said application and issue passport to him.