Father's Name No Longer Mandatory On Passports, Sadhus Can Use Their Guru's Name Instead

MEA changes rules for passport

Maninder DabasUpdated: Dec 23, 2016, 19:38 IST

Ministry of External Affairs on Friday announced a new list of rules to be followed while issuing new passports.

Here's a full list of the updated rules, as reported by a press release on the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

According to the extant statutory provisions of the Passport Rules, 1980, applicants born on or after 26/01/1989 had to hitherto submit their birth certificate as proof of date of birth (DOB) in order to get a passport.

pass

AFP

Applicants can do without birth certificate and can produce any of the following documents

1. Transfer certificate/school leaving certificate/Matriculation certificate issued by the school last attended which has DOB of the applicant.

2. PAN card issued by the Income Tax Department with the DOB of applicant.

3. Aadhar card/E-Aadhar

4. Copy of the extract of the service record of the applicant (only for government servants) or the pay pension order (in respect of retired government servants), duly attested/certified by the officer/in-charge of the administration of the concerned ministry/department of the applicant, having his DOB.

5. Driving licence issued by the transport

6. Election photo identity card issued by the Election Commission

7. Policy bonds issued by the Public Life Insurance Corporations or companies having the DOB of the holder of the insurance policy.

Issues of single parents now addressed

Paass

Reuters

A three-member committee, comprising officials of the ministry of external affairs and the ministry of women and child development, was constituted to examine various issues pertaining to passport applications where the mother or child has insisted that the name of the father should not be mentioned in the passport, and also relating to passport issues of children with single parents and of adopted children.

The report submitted by the committee has been accepted by the ministry and following changes have been on the basis of the recommendations.

While filling the online passport application form, now one has to only fill name of the legal guardian who can either be the mother or father. Now it��s not mandatory to mention father��s name while applying for a passport. This would enable single parents to apply for passports for their children and to also issue passports where the name of either the father or the mother is not required to be printed at the request of the applicant.

Here are other major changes

1 The number of annexes has also been decreased as earlier the total number of annexes prescribed in the Passport Rule, 1980 were 15, but now they have been reduced to nine. Annexes A,C,D,E,J and K have been removed and certain annexes have been merged.

2. All annexes that are required to be given by applicants would be in the form of a self-declaration on a plain paper. No attestation or swearing by or before any notary/executive magistrate/first class judicial magistrate would be henceforth necessary.

3. For married applicants, annexure K has been removed which would ask married people to submit their marriage certificate.

4. The passport application form does not require the applicant to provide the name of her/his spouse in case of separated or divorced persons. Such applicants for passports would not be required to provide even the divorce decree

5. Children born out of wedlock, the applicant for the passport of such children should submit only Annexure G while submitting the passport application.

6. In case of adopted children, submission of the registered adoption deed would no longer be required. In the absence of any deed to this effect, passport applicants may give a declaration on a plain paper confirming the adoption.

Sadhus and Sanyasis too can apply