No discrepancy in passport applications by Lucknow interfaith couple: MEA probe

An internal probe by the MEA has found no discrepancy in the passport applications by an inter-religious couple in Lucknow, an issue that snowballed into a huge controversy on social media, which even burnt the foreign minister Sushma Swaraj.

Sources here said passports had been issued to Tanvi Seth and her husband Anas Siddiqui in Lucknow. The probe also found that action taken against Vikas Mishra, the passport official, was justified - Mishra was transferred out of Lucknow to Gorakhpur because he had "overstepped" the bounds of duty, sources here said. His questions to the couple were felt to be "irrelevant" and his behaviour uncalled for - he had apparently asked the husband to convert to Hinduism and have a Hindu wedding ceremony.

"The passports of Tanvi Seth and Anas Siddiqui have been cleared," Regional Passport Officer (RPO) Piyush Verma told PTI in Lucknow today. The couple had alleged harassment by a passport official, saying they were targeted because of their interfaith marriage.

The probe established a couple of things - first, that the nikah nama that Tanvi produced was no longer necessary as proof of identity, or even marriage. The rules for this had been simplified some time back. After checking her other documents, the government did not believe there was any problem.

Second, the post facto police verification did not have any adverse observation either. The police officer in Lucknow had gone on record to say that the applicant, Tanvi Seth, had not resided in the declared residence for the past year.

Since May 21, 2018, the government has brought down the police role to a couple of issues - probing a criminal background if any, and verifying whether the applicant is a citizen of India. For this, the policeman does not even need to physically visit the applicant. The number of questions too has come down to 6 that could be asked by the police. So whether Tanvi Seth had stayed at the address for a year or not is no longer relevant for passport purposes.

The passport story exploded into a huge controversy - first when the couple tweeted to the minister, second, when the passport official was transferred. Later, Mishra, the official, spoke to the media professing his innocence and raising doubts about whether Seth and her husband had tried to obtain passports under false pretences.

Since the story had been given a religious colour, this brought right wing trolls to turn on Sushma Swaraj, targeting her with some vicious attacks on social media. It took Swaraj's cabinet colleagues over a week to even defend her.

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

The local police sent its report to the RPO office on June 26, saying Tanvi Seth had been living in Noida, and not Lucknow as mentioned in her application, for the past one year. That may well be true, but it no longer has a bearing on whether she can get a passport.