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Jana Mahiti report calls for scrapping of police verification in issuing of passports

Posted on April 26, 2016 from Karnataka ι Report #82440

The Jana Mahiti report brought out by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy that calls for doing away with the existing practice of police verification undertaken by the Passport Office was released on April 25. The findings of the report were based on the extensive research undertaken by ipaidabribe.com, and analysis of crowd-sourced reports filed by citizens on the site pertaining to the bribes given to police personnel for address verification. After studying the reports, it was found out that police verification is a pain point, and one that breeds corruption. The report adds that scrapping this practice will not only reduce the level of corruption in the department but also make the process of obtaining a passport more seamless. Justice N Santosh Hegde released the report.

The report was written Dr ST Ramesh the former Director General & Inspector General of Police, Karnataka State.

The recommendations to do away with passport verification stems from three drawbacks discovered during the study.

a)      Absence of clarity on what police verification is

b)      Verification through digitized crime records is the only scientific verification

c)       Police Department is not the only custodian of records relating to who should not be issue passport in this country.

The report details alternative steps for address verification. These include: 

A)     Create a database of  persons to whom issue of passport is not desirable.

B)      Google search applicants.

C)      Passport office may insist upon more than one document in proof of address such as Aadhar card, voter ID, permanent driving licence, ration card etc

D)     The Regional Passport Office may insist on a declaration by the applicant indicating the duration for which the applicant has lived in the particular address.

E)      Insist on a sworn statement or an affidavit testifying to the fact mentioned in the application including whether the applicant is /was involved in a criminal case or jailed at any time.

F)      Call applicants for a personal interview through a random sample.

G)     Utilise services of a private detective agency to verify antecedents of applicants on a selective and random basis.

Benefits of implementing the solutions stated:

 Adopting these practices, the report suggests will help eliminate Retail corruption, at least at the level of police verification.  Police harassment of applicants under the guise of police verification, and unscientific and perfunctory verifications will also be put to an end.  The report adds that additional benefits include better utilization of scarce human resources of the police for providing safety and security to citizens, and the speeding up of issuance of passports. The Regional Passport Office would save the money which it otherwise would be paying to the police department for this service, adds the report.

The Problem Statement:

The report also states the various issues that Citizens face when applying for a passport. Citizens undergo harassment at the hands of the police in the course of this simple verification, and the applicant is often summoned to the police station where they are made to wait. Considering the huge number of applicants referred to the police for verification it is highly impossible for each application to be verified by a PSI. Police often resort to shortcuts by summoning applicants to the police station causing much inconvenience to them. Worse, there are loud complaints of retail corruption by the police in the course of verification.

The applicant is expected to attach proof of address through Aadhar Card or voted ID while applying for a passport. As regards verification of criminal antecedents it should be understood that no database of crime and criminals exist at present in any of the police departments in the country except in the state of Karnataka.  In Karnataka, digitised records of all crimes registered as FIRs, in respect of more than ten years are available. In the absence of such a national database, any verification of criminal antecedents by the police is rendered perfunctory since manual verification is almost impractical. It is safe to conclude therefore that any verification of criminal antecedents would be an unscientific and perfunctory exercise until such time as a database is available in all state police departments. In this backdrop, police verification of criminal antecedent hardly serves any purpose except providing a psychological satisfaction to the Passport Issuing Authorities that the application has been cleared by the police. 

About JanamahitiThe Janamahiti report (peoples’ information) was created by Janaagraha in 2010 to in order to understand retail corruption occurring in various departments, and to initiate process reforms to curb these practices. The reports contain a study of citizens’ experiences on ipaidabribe.com, and the first report was related to the Transport Department. The report is analyzed by the IPaB team for the benefit of the various departments in Bengaluru. The report is then submitted to concerned department and official.