The refusal letter usually quotes a single clause, and it reads as though the matter is closed. It is not. The Act itself carries the way out, and the delay in most files comes from applicants pushing back on the Regional Passport Office instead of going to the criminal court where the answer lies.
The provision behind the refusal
Section 6(2) of the Passports Act, 1967 lists the grounds on which the passport authority shall refuse a passport, and says it may refuse on those grounds and on no other ground. Clause (f) is the one you have been given: that proceedings in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by the applicant are pending before a criminal court in India. Clause (g) is the neighbouring ground, which applies where a warrant or summons for appearance, or a warrant for arrest, has been issued, or where a court has made an order prohibiting your departure from India.
If you already hold a passport, the mirror provision is Section 10(3)(e), which allows the passport authority to impound or revoke a passport if proceedings in respect of an alleged offence are pending before a criminal court in India, and Section 10(3)(h), which applies where a warrant or summons or a departure prohibition order exists.
The exemption that makes it workable
Section 22 empowers the Central Government, where it is of the opinion that it is necessary or expedient in the public interest, to exempt any person or class of persons from the operation of all or any of the provisions of the Act, by notification in the Official Gazette and subject to such conditions as it may specify. That power was used. Read the notification with the Supreme Court's decision in Mahesh Kumar Agarwal, which distinguishes renewal permission from permission for an actual journey. A Ministry of External Affairs notification of 25 August 1993, G.S.R. 570(E), exempts citizens of India against whom proceedings in respect of an alleged offence are pending before a criminal court, and who produce orders from the court concerned permitting them to depart from India, from the operation of Section 6(2)(f).
What you actually file
Two documents do the work, and neither of them is a representation to the passport office.
- An order of the criminal court addressing passport issue or renewal, with the intended validity period clearly stated. In Mahesh Kumar Agarwal (19 December 2025), the Supreme Court confirmed that renewal can be permitted while each foreign trip remains subject to separate leave. Approval for a specific immediate journey is not universally required for renewal
- The undertaking contemplated by G.S.R. 570(E), on plain paper, giving your name, date of birth, parents' names, present address and the file or ARN number of the application
- Full particulars of every pending case, meaning the case number, the name of the court, the investigating agency with the police station and officer, the last date of hearing and the next date of hearing, on an additional sheet where there is more than one case
- An undertaking that you shall, if required by the court concerned, appear before it at any time during the continuance in force of the passport so issued
- An acknowledgement that furnishing false information or suppressing material information with a view to obtaining a passport is an offence under the Act
- A certified copy of the FIR and of any bail order, which the passport office frequently asks for even though the notification does not require it
If the passport has already been impounded
Section 10(5) obliges the passport authority, when it impounds or revokes a passport, to record in writing a brief statement of the reasons and to furnish a copy to the holder on demand, unless it is of the opinion that furnishing a copy would not be in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India, friendly relations with a foreign country or the general public. Demand that copy in writing. An order without reasons, or with reasons that merely recite the section, is the weakest kind of order to defend.
Section 11 then gives an appeal to the appellate authority against an order under Section 10(1) or 10(3), to be filed within the prescribed period, with a proviso allowing a late appeal where the appellant satisfies the authority that he had sufficient cause. The appeal is by a petition in writing accompanied by a copy of the statement of reasons where that copy has been furnished, and no appeal is to be disposed of without giving the appellant a reasonable opportunity of representing his case. Note the limit: no appeal lies against an order made by the Central Government itself. Where the order is mechanical, unreasoned, or made without hearing, a writ petition before the High Court under Article 226 is the alternative.
Do not conceal the case
This is the mistake that turns a delay into a prosecution. Section 10(3)(b) allows a passport to be impounded or revoked if it was obtained by the suppression of material information or on the basis of wrong information, and the proviso adds that if the holder of such a passport obtains another passport, the authority shall impound or revoke that one too. Ticking no against the pending case question in the hope that police verification will not catch it is a poor gamble, and it converts a straightforward Section 22 route into a fresh offence under the Act.
Timing, and what to expect
Nobody can honestly give you a fixed processing time. What is predictable is the sequence, and the sequence is where the weeks go. The application before the criminal court is heard on notice to the Public Prosecutor, objections are filed, and the order follows. Only then does the passport file move, and it may go for a fresh police verification after that. Applicants who are working abroad or who have a joining date consistently underestimate this and apply in the last month. Start with the court application, not with the passport office, and start it early.
One further point that is often missed. If the criminal case is at the stage where it should not exist at all, the passport problem is a symptom rather than the disease, and the better application may be to have the proceedings quashed. Equally, if the difficulty is on the other side of a family dispute, meaning somebody is trying to have your passport impounded to enforce a maintenance order, or a child's passport is stuck because the parents are separated, those are separate regimes with their own answers, dealt with in our notes on impounding a passport to enforce maintenance and on a child's passport where the parents are separated. The related question of actually leaving the country once the passport is in hand is answered separately in whether you can travel abroad while a criminal case is pending.