Couple's passports' row: Probe finds official excess

The Regional Passport Office in Lucknow has approved the passports issued to an interfaith couple caught in a row last month.

Sources in Delhi said that an internal government probe has found that the passport official in Lucknow who dealt with the couple's case and the local police had exceeded their brief by asking "irrelevant" questions pertaining to their religion.

"The passports of Tanvi Seth and Anas Siddiqui have been cleared,” Regional Passport Officer (RPO) Piyush Verma said.

The couple had alleged harassment by a passport official, saying they were targeted because of their interfaith marriage.

Piyush Verma said there was no adverse report from the police, which conducted a verification of the couple under the Ministry of External Affairs guidelines.

He said under the new MEA rules in force from June, the police report only on six points related to criminal antecedents and citizenship.

In an attempt to ease the police verification process, the MEA had reduced the number of questions applicants have to answer from nine to six, he said.

Controversy erupted on June 20 when Tanvi Seth and Siddiqui, who have been married for 12 years, wrote on Twitter that they had been humiliated at the passport office in Lucknow.

They had alleged that official Vikas Mishra asked Siddiqui to convert to Hinduism and pulled up Seth for marrying a Muslim when the couple went to file their passport applications.

On June 21, the RPO transferred Mishra to Gorakhpur and issued passports to the couple.

The couple had tagged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and following the official’s transfer the minister was trolled on Twitter.