After a prolonged legal battle, Iltija Mufti, daughter of PDP president and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti has been issued a passport with 10-year validity.
The issuance of a regular passport to Iltija came months after she moved to Jammu and Kashmir High Court with a fresh petition seeking its intervention for extending the duration of her passport along with no bar to travel to any country.
Earlier in April, Iltija had been issued a passport for a limited period of two years to allow her to study abroad despite an adverse report by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Iltija, 36, had moved the J&K High Court in February for issuance of the passport for her studies after her application for the travel document was not cleared. She had challenged the decision of the passport office to give her a country-specific passport.
“The regional passport officer called Iltija to his office and handed over a regular passport with 10-year validity to her,” a local news gathering agency KDC quoted an unnamed official of the passport office.
Her passport had expired on January 2 and she had applied for a fresh one in advance on June 8 last year.
In June, Mehbooba had also been given a passport with 10-year validity. In March 2021, Mehbooba and her mother Gulshan Nazir were refused passports by J&K police citing an “adverse report” against her. Gulshan Nazir is wife of former chief minister, the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who was union home minister in 1990 during VP Singh government at the Center.
Mehbooba had sought the intervention of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for the issuance of the passport, saying she had been waiting for it for the past three years to take her mother on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Published 25 August 2023, 14:07 IST