‘Passport Seva Programme V2 likely to curb forged docus menace’

Soumyadip Mullick, MP, 19 Mar 2025, Kolkata: With the Kolkata Police busting several rackets for using forged documents to secure passports, the Regional Passport Officer (RPO), Ashish Middha, IFS, said that such instances are likely to be curbed in the second version of the Passport Seva Programme when memorandum of understandings (MoUs) are signed with agencies having databases which can aid verification process. 

Addressing a seminar ‘Crack the Passport Code’, organised by the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Ashish Middha, RPO, West Bengal, Tripura, Sikkim, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, said that passport authorities are now asking for more documents for verification purposes. 

Asked if multiplicity of documents can further increase the risks of forgery, Middha told Millennium Post that the idea is to check the authenticity of documents, regardless of whether it is done by passport authorities or the police. 

“System presently doesn’t provide us with any mechanism to check the authenticity of documents as of yet. When we move to version two, and there are MoUs with agencies which have databases, probably we will be in a better situation to verify that. For now, I cannot say whether multiple documents will increase forgery risks,” he said. 

Middha explained that despite an application having been processed and the passport issued on the basis of a police verification report, if some discrepancy crops up “it is brought to attention and law takes its own course”. 

He added that the police are doing the needful as 130 names were added to the chargesheet in arrests made in such forgery cases. Police are pointing out that a person who submitted forged documents should also be subjected to legal action and not just the agents, government servants who helped them out. 

On impounding passports when criminal cases are pending, Middha said: “When an applicant doesn’t divulge that there is a pending criminal case, we send a show-cause notice calling for explanation and the requisite permission from the trial court concerned. 

Once the person submits it, we process the application. We don’t close or impound or refuse. Passport is impounded only when the person doesn’t respond to our intimation. Once you reach immigration while going out of India or while returning, your passport will come to us,” he said. 

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/passport-seva-programme-v2-likely-to-curb-forged-docus-menace-602936