Congress leader and Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor has strongly criticized the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) following its recent statement that an Indian passport serves merely as a travel document and is not absolute proof of citizenship. Terming the government’s stance an absurd legal paradox, Tharoor argued on Friday that this policy creates unnecessary complications and confusion for ordinary citizens.
The controversy stems from a clarification issued by the MEA during ‘Passport Seva Diwas,’ where government sources clarified that under the Passport Act of 1967, a passport has never been legally treated as conclusive evidence of citizenship. Reacting to this via the social media platform X, Tharoor questioned how a document issued by the government after rigorous verification, including strict police background checks and document scrutiny, could be deemed insufficient to prove a person’s citizenship.
To eliminate this regulatory ambiguity, Tharoor urged the central government to introduce immediate legislative amendments to recognize both passports and identity cards as valid proof of Indian citizenship. Acknowledging that current residency-based identity documents are issued to all residents irrespective of nationality, he proposed introducing a different-colored identity card for non-citizens. He concluded that such structural reforms would not only streamline administrative processes but also provide much-needed legal clarity to ordinary people.
