Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has been issued a passport with a ten-year validity after a prolonged legal battle, The Indian Express reported on Sunday.
The Peoples Democratic Party chief’s passport expired on May 31, 2019. On August 5 that year, the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was split into two Union Territories after the Centre scrapped its special status under Article 370 of the Constitution.
Mufti was placed under house arrest on the same day, and was released only after 14 months.
The former chief minister applied for a new passport after her release, but the application was denied due to an adverse report from the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Criminal Investigation Department.
In February, Mufti wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar seeking his intervention to clear her passport. She said in the letter that the matter had been “dragged on needlessly for the last three years”.
On May 3, the Delhi High Court directed authorities to decide on her application within three months.
In January, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had ordered authorities to issue a passport to Mufti’s mother Gulshan Nazir. It also told the Regional Passport Officer “not to act as mouthpiece of the CID”, according to The Indian Express.
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