The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has said it does not maintain consolidated data on the number of passports issued to non-citizens of India, in response to a Right to Information (RTI) application seeking those figures.
The application had asked how many passports have been issued under Section 20 of the Passports Act, 1967, which empowers the central government to issue a passport to a person who is not an Indian citizen if it considers doing so necessary in the public interest. “Such information is not maintained in a compiled or consolidated form,” the MEA said in its response.
The applicant’s subsequent appeal to the ministry’s first appellate authority also failed to yield the figures, with the authority reiterating that the MEA “does not maintain the requested statistical information (number of passports issued to non-citizens).”
The gap is notable given that the government routinely discloses other categories of passport-related data. In a parliamentary reply on February 8, 2024, for instance, the MEA provided detailed figures on passports issued across states and by gender. However, when it comes to the nationality of passport holders — specifically, how many non-citizens have been issued passports under Section 20 — the government maintains that no consolidated record exists.
The disclosure has drawn attention given the provision’s public-interest exception allows non-citizens to be issued Indian passports under specific circumstances, yet the government appears unable to say, even in aggregate, how often that exception has been invoked.
The RTI Act requires public authorities to furnish information that exists in their records; where data has genuinely not been compiled or maintained in aggregate form, authorities are not obligated to compile it afresh solely for an RTI request, a limitation the MEA has invoked in this instance.
— Daily Archives, National Desk