The file has been forwarded to the police, which had been looking for it ever since the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started monitoring the case of the Pune-based billionaire.

Within days after the ED tightened the screw against this money laundered, it was found that Khan was issued a passport (A1519660) from Patna on April 10, 1997, after he submitted a fake residential address of Alamganj locality in the state capital.

It was then that the Kotwali police asked the RPO in Patna to furnish photocopies of all documents attached by Khan while applying for passport. But the passport office last week said the related file was “missing.”

“On an average, two lakh files are generated every year at this passport office. So it took some time to locate the 14-year-old file,” said Regional Passport Officer Anand Kumar.

However, the file shows that the passport was issued to Hasan Ali Khan in 1997 after police verification.

“No short cut was taken in issuing the short-validity passport, which was meant for just one year,” Anand said. “The file has now been forwarded to the police for necessary action.”

The ball is now in police court which has to explain about the “verification” done for issuing the passport. 

If the police had indeed “verified” it, as it seems to be, then  either Khan was present in person in the city or the police official concerned committed gross negligence by not matching the photographs with the person being verified.

To a query on what action would be taken against the official who carried out the verification job, senior Superintendent of Police of Patna Alok Kumar said, “I can comment only after seeing the file.”