The Madras High Court today directed the Regional Passport Officer here to issue with additional pages the passport of cine director Seeman, also founder of political party 'Naam Thamilar Katchi' within a week.
"Despite the fact that the validity of the passport of the petitioner is up to 05/01/2015, the passport authority has refused to issue additional pages. Admittedly no proceedings have been initiated so far under any of the provisions of the Indian Passport Act," Justice V Ramasubramanian said.
The judge after allowing the petition filed by Seeman, directed the passport officer to issue additional pages within one week from the date of receipt of the copy of the order.
Seeman contended he had applied for passport renewal in 2005 and it was issued with the expiry date of January 1, 2015.
Being a political party leader and a cine director, he attended several conferences in other countries regarding alleged war crimes on Tamils by Sri Lankan government and the army. When he last visited Malaysia he found no further pages in his passport due to his frequent visits and so applied for issuance of additional pages to his passport.
As he was very busy with political activities, he had instructed his Personal Assistant Kamaraj to get things done. The PA filled up the application form and after getting it signed by him, submitted it to the Regional Pass Port office.
On the basis of information from police, the office called him on May 14, 2013 asking him to provide suitable explanation in 30 days on pending criminal cases against him and also for suppressing material information on cases pending trial.
On June 6 that year, Seeman filed a reply about the 'foisted' cases against him, details of those in which he was acquitted and those pending trial.
Seeman submitted that the suppression is neither willful nor intentional.
He further said his personal secretary opined that details have to be furnished only if there is conviction and hence he had not wantonly done it.
Seeman prayed for a direction to the authorities to return his passport with additional pages.
