Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:33391-DB Court No. - 29 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 4460 of 2025 Petitioner :- Mo Saif Respondent :- Union Of India And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Avnish Kumar Srivastava,Mohammad Anas Raza,Mohd Vahid Siddiqui Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.,C.S.C.,Sanjay Dwivedi Hon'ble Ashwani Kumar Mishra,J. Hon'ble Donadi Ramesh,J. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Sanjay Dwivedi, learned counsel for the respondents. Grievance of the petitioner is that his application for issuance of the passport is kept pending for no justifiable reasons. It is urged that the police verification report has been arbitrarily withheld as a result of which passport has not been issued to the petitioner. On the previous occasion, instructions were invited in the matter. As per which, it transpires that investigation in Case Crime No.244 of 2021 under Section 501 IPC, Police Station Utraon, District Prayagraj, is pending. No charge sheet etc. has been filed in the matter. It is apparently for this reason that passport application of the petitioner has been kept pending. Section 6 (2) (e) of the Passport Act, 1967 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") provides for exigencies in which passport could be withheld on account of conviction of a person in criminal case. Such conviction must be for an offence of moral turpitude and the sentence ought to be for a period which is not less than 2 years. In the present case, the offence alleged against the petitioner is under Section 501 IPC for which maximum sentence can travel up to 2 years. In such a case, even if the offence is ultimately established even then exigency which is dealt with by Section 6 (2) (e) of the Act would not get attracted. In such circumstances, we find that merely on account of pendency of such case, passport cannot be denied to the petitioner. No other criminal activity of any kind is attributed to the petitioner. Once that be so, we direct the Regional Passport Officer, Lucknow to consider the petitioner's pending application for issuance of the passport, in the light of the above observations within a period of four weeks from the date of presentation of copy of this order before him. Accordingly, the present writ petition is disposed of. Order Date :- 7.3.2025 rkg Digitally signed by :- RAKESH KUMAR GAUTAM High Court of Judicature at Allahabad