It has been a long time since I updated this blog. Even though I didn’t add any post, I’ve been replying to the comments posted by other people who are having problems with renewing their Indian passport.
Having last all hopes from High Commission of India, as they refused existence of my passport renewal application, I decided to file a write petition in the High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore.
You might think that it will be a piece of cake to file a writ petition as the fucking great Indian constitution lays down the simple rule of filing write petition. And filing a writ petition is so simple that you can’t believe that such system exists in India.
Basically you can even file a write petition by using a post card. Surprised? Don’t be surprised this is true.
However whether the court takes your write petition seriously or not that is different case.
The problem starts when you are not physically present in India and your passport is expired. Not being present in India doesn’t deny your constitutional rights to file a write petition however it certainly makes your life a living hell when you try to file one.
Here are my step by step details of the saga of filing writ petition in the High court of Karnataka at Bangalore. Keep reading, it is the story of great discoveries, fucking incompetencies of the High Court and Indian judiciary and dumb lawyers.
1 – The research
Before I could file write petition through my lawyer in Bangalore I’ve to spent days and weeks of time in finding out what is the process, under which section I can file writ petition and to prepare the write petition by myself. Yes that is correct. Lawyers in India are dumb retard, illiterate and complete incompetent. Everyone knows who in India chooses the Law profession in India, the ones who are incompetent to get any other job. There are very few in India who really choose law profession because of their interest.
So the research involved finding out what exactly I need to write in the writ petition, finding out citations for the similar cases in the past and putting everything together. After spending weeks of my precious time and exchanging e-mail and hundreds of international phone calls with my lawyer in Bangalore I finally managed to put together a great writ petition.
At the end my lawyer said to me why you are worrying too much about the petition draft, do you want to writ petition or want to win the case? His indication was clear, the content of writ petition doesn’t matter, it all comes down to the lawyer and the under-table dealings with the court and judges. That is how you win court cases in Indian courts. Bribe them all involved and you win the case. Or if you have contacts use them to influence the outcome of the case.
Finally my writ petition was ready to be fined in the first week of March 2011.
The respondents mentioned in writ petition were followings
1) Ministry of Home Affiars
2) Regional Passport Office at Bsangalore
3) Local Police station.
You can’t drag High Commission of India in the writ petition as it is beyond the Indian jurisdiction and hence you have to involve MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) under which High Commissions and Embassies fall.
2 – Filing writ petition in the High Court at Bangalore
Once the draft was sent out to the Lawyer (via e-mail) the next challenge was to file it in the High Court.
Filing the writ petition in the high court is easy task however being accepted and getting it registered is something beyond the logic.
The case was filed however it couldn’t get accepted immediately. As usual there were strikes, holidays, judge was absent and thousands of other fucking excuses.
At one point the judge even said my case is not so important and hence didn’t give any immediate consideration. This asshole didn’t realize that we approach the high court only when all other means are exhausted and hence all such petitions need immediate attention. This dumb fuck didn’t realize that I’m without a fucking passport for over a year and it doesn’t seem to be of any importance to him.
Didn’t I say earlier that the people in law business and hence the High court judges are the refuse of the society. Which is so true.
My case was assigned a case number however it was not the end. The writ petition has to be accepted before it could be heard in the high court. My case was not accepted till (date to be confirmed).
High Court of Karnataka have a website where they maintain the case list and you can search your case, if you know your case number provided it is live and working. In most of the time it is down or under maintenance.. as usual.. fucking Indian incompetency. While Indian IT brains rule the world this dumb fucks can’t keep a simple databse driven website live.
3 – Power of attorney for filing a writ petition in the High Court
Thinking that all went good and soon my case will be considered by a judge I was having some peace of mind. However I knew from one corner of my heart and mind that there will be more fuckups to come and I was right.
The problem happened with the Power of Attorney (POA). When you want to file a case in the court in India and you are not physically in the country then you have to give to POA to your lawyer to file your case on your behalf.
Sounds pretty basic stuff isn’t it? everyone knows that you have to give POA whether it is filing a case or in any other case where you want someone to act on your behalf such as buying/selling lands etc.
So what fucked up POA?
The fuck up was with the procedure and technical.
I’ve done a lot of research to find out the correct process of getting a POA and I was sure that I got it right. But you never get anything right with fucking Indian system. These suckers always have some stupid technical mistakes which they always pull out when you think it is all over.
The process of getting a POA was simple, at least what I found out after my weeks of research.
First get the POA draft from the lawyer.
Either ask the lawyer to send you that draft on the court paper (that long greenish paper which they use in Indian court). This will delay the process as it takes about 2-3 weeks of time to receive the post from India and then send it back to India.
To speed up the process ask lawyer to send you the POA draft and you print it out on the greenish paper.
Then comes the most challenging and technical part. Who is supposed to sign/authorize the POA?
The correct step, as I could understand with all my research, is to first get the POA authorized from a Notary, then get an Apostille from FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office). This should be sufficient to be accepted by any authority in India.
The fuck up happens when my lawyer asked me to get the POA only notarized. Which I did first time. After weeks of waste of time and not to mention hundreds of pounds it was done.
Then court rejected that POA with only notary.
Next my lawyer asked me to get it authorized from the High Commission of India. So I did it again, printed the POA on green paper, got it notarized, then got an Appostille on it from the FCO office.
However getting authorization from the High Commission of India was not technically possible as my passport is expired and without a valid passport these mother fuckers would not authorize.
Translated technically without a valid passport I’m not more fucking citizen of India as I can’t get a fucking clerk to authorize a simple fucking document. Isn’t it?
However I didn’t give it up and asked my notary to visit High Commission of India with my expired passport and try to get it authorized. He told me that they will not do it but I insisted on giving it a try. I also asked if he can bribe them to get it done for which he replied that inside the Bharat Bhavan it is not possible to bribe and he doesn’t ahve any contacts to deal with them out of office.
He finally did make effort to get the POA authorized from High Commission of India at London but they refused as anticipated.
There something called Geneva Convention which states that a document authorized by the FCO should be acceptable in any country which is signatory of the convention. India is a signatory of Geneva convention so as per this convention an Indian court should accept any document which has appostille from FCO.
But as usual fucking Indian system doesn’t give a fuck to any fucking Geneva convention and follows it’s own fucking convention.
At the end of this fuck up I finally manage to get the POA notarized and Appostille from FCO. FCO attaches a small white paper (Appostille) with their stamp on it and on that appostille is is clearly mention that it is part of Geneva convention and other stuff which I said above.
I sent this document to my lawyer, he passed it on to the High Court only to be rejected again.
Till this point I have already spent £500 towards notary (2 times) and FCO charges. After wasting £500 and months of time I’m back to square one.
Who is to be blamed? I did as per procedures. But fucking Indians don’t give a damn to their own fucking constitution and rules.
Next the judge asked to get an affidavit.
My lawyer sent me another document and asked me to get an affidavit from a reputed solicitor in London.
You will think this should be another simple process. Wrong again. Anything involving fucking Indians is not simple.
I contacted few solicitors, no one replied or showed interest. One solicitor (of Indian origin) showed interest and said she can do it. The charges would be £10 per affidavit (read document).
Dont’ be surprised, £10 seems peanuts but that is the rule here in the UK. They can’t demand more money for affidavit. So that was good news that it didn’t involve a lot of money. Notary charges £60 per document with some discount for multiple documents. FCO charges are also fixed. Notary charges more if you need more services such as visiting FCO and getting appostile, visiting HCI etc.
I spoke to the solicitor over phone and explained her the requirements. I fixed an appointment to get it done however in the last moments she phoned up and said that she needs to see all the documents which are mentioned in the affidavit.
These documents are nothing but the some annexure of the writ petition.
I had to cancel the appointment as my next challenge was to collect all those documents. I found all documents but one for which I asked my lawyer to get it for me and send it.
And I’m stuck here.
At this date my lawyer is in the process of getting this missing document which he will send probably next week, which will take another 1-2 weeks to arrive.
Then the next question is how much the solicitor will charge for affidavit. Each of these annexure has multiple pages and total it will be around 50-100 pages. If she is going to charge £10 per page then I’m fucked and I’m not going to get this affidavit. If she considers each set of document as one document then it will be total £50 or so for affidavit which can be done.
That was my story with a simple process of filing writ petition.
I’ll keep it updated as things progress.
Hey, for some reason I can’t seem to find the date of this post and hence enquiring on your status. How’s the proceedings going? Any updates? I’m really sorry you have to go through all these torment.
I’m about to go to HCI London to renew my passport by Tatkal service. Any gotchas I should be looking out for apart from the usual they-will-screw-you-anyway?
One particular inconsistency I’ve found regarding the photos is that CGI Edinburgh requires a photo of 2″ x 2″, while HCI London wants a 35mm x 45mm passport photo. Is that right?
P.S.: Is it possible to add the dates of the post in the blog template? It seems that the current template you’re using hides that info.
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Grumpy Indian Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Sorry mate! Seems date is screwed up in this bloody theme. Will fix it soon. Tx for pointing out.
For Photos you can check out the website. These assholes can’t even have same specification for photos.
Each branch has it’s own form and rules. What a bunch of retards.
Indian Passport Renewal at HCI London and Tatkal scheme? Are you sure you can do that? They never mention it and I’m not sure if such service exist at all. It is not mentioned on their website. So make sure what you doing is right for you. As a backup keep the regular form as well with you. You don’t’ want to get pissed off after wasting ur precious time in standing for 3 hours in front of the most gloomy building in Central London in such chilling winter.
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Abi Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Yes HCI London has Tatkal Scheme. Checkout point 10 in
‘Re-issue of Passports’ section in here: http://hcilondon.in/passport.php
I also personally talked to someone in HCI London and they did confirm it exists. But then again, it’s upto their discretion if they will do it in a day.
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Grumpy Indian Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Good for you.
It didn’t exist when I applied. I wonder how do they do it? It takes weeks of time to get a reply from the RPO in India if you are lucky, and if they stick up “Adverse” status then you are done.
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Hey Grumpy London, i am silent reader on your blog, but now its my turn to get suggestions from experts/from experiences.
i ‘ve checked the HCI London website and found that tatkal scheme exists. but wanted to know on what basis they will accpet application under Tatkal scheme. do we need to give reason or simply pay 100GBP extra and get things done under Tatkal?if anyone use this Tatkal scheme, can u throw some light on this.
Abhi: Can you please update me on this Tatkal Service once you are done with Passport Renewal.
Here is My Situation : i stay in london. currently i’m in USA on B1 visa..will be in States untill 15th Jan 2012. My Current VISA (Tier 1) expires on 01-MAR-2012 and my Passport Renewal is 01-JUL-2012. but to apply for VISA Extension in JAN, do we need to have min 6 months valid passport?? if Yes, my current passport will not be usefula nd need renewal. i will have 1 Month time to get my Passport renewal. so i must use that service. am i thinking correct ? please update me..Thanks
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Grumpy Indian Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Welcome mate! Make some noise.
AFAIK you don’t need to give any reason for tatkal scheme. You are paying more money that itself is reason. However I doubt if they really have a tatkal scheme and if they have do they really make it tatkal or just milk money and do the usual donkey work?
You don’t need 6 months on your passport to apply for VISA extension. I got extension with just a week of time on my passport.
Always get Visa extension first. And apply for Visa extension in person, go in morning and walk out with ur visa extension by evening.
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Abi Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Just to add to that… HCI London did request a document to prove the emergency in case of tatkal application.
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Krishna Reply:
November 9th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
“You don’t need 6 months on your passport to apply for VISA extension. I got extension with just a week of time on my passport. ”
are you sure that we don’t need 6 months valid passport for VISA extension..sorry for asking twice..just to confirm again..if this is the case, i can go for visa extension first if i feel that passport renewal is going to take more time…. Thanks..
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Grumpy Indian Reply:
November 9th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Krishna,
There are many Visa categories in the UK now and each of them might have their own set of rules. The best for you will be to check Home Office website and red their rules. If it is not mentioned there then you don’t need to worry.
Tier 1 used to be called HSMP earlier under which I came to the UK. I applied for ILR when I had just few days left on my passport.
Basically you can even apply with an expired passport, in which case they issue the VISA on a piece of paper called ISD.
Above are my own personal experience and research which I did when I lats applied for ILR.
Don’t take my words for it, check on Home Office website for the extension rules.
Home Office website used to be simple in the past, now they have fucked it up with hundreds of different VISA categories. I don’t visit it any more and I don’t need it anymore. I’m done with UK Home office for the rest of life as I’ve ILR.
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Abi Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
I’m just back from HCI London. The tatkal scheme, for some very odd reason, doesn’t “work”. Or so they say. Seems like ‘tatkal’ scheme is some sort of machine that went kaput. I would suggest you try to renew your passport in USA under tatkal scheme as they seem to do it efficiently than in London. I’ve been told it’s much better now in London (since when, I’ve no idea). If you renew your passport in USA your Tier 1 is still valid and you need not transfer that to your new passport. I also learned from today’s experience that written passports do not qualify for tatkal scheme. So if you do have a passport whose front/bio page is hand-written, then I believe tatkal scheme will not work for you. But hey, they say different things each time so it might be worth to check it out with the consulate you’re going to approach.
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Grumpy Indian Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
” I also learned from today’s experience that written passports do not qualify for tatkal scheme.”
That is hilarious. Tatkal scheme has been in place before they stopped writing with hands. Most of the passports expiring now would have been issued 10 yrs back when they still used hands to write so how could they say that hand written passports don’t qualify for tatkal scheme for renewal?
BTW how else they print on passports now? Do they type with typewriter? Certainly they don’t know how to use computer. Last time I was inside HCI London office I saw old clerks writing on passport with hands and if I’m not wrong those were the passports being renewed.
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Krishna Reply:
November 9th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
i cannot apply for Passport renewal in USA,since i’m here on Business Visa (non-Immigrant). they can give 1 year visa that too if its emergency. so its difficult to renew here in USA. Luckily my Passport is not hand written, i might get chance to use tatkal facility. first i will try to apply for Passport renewal and then for VISA Extension ( wanted to add my Spouse name on my passport before going for Visa extension, so that it will not be an issue in applting their dependant visa from India). recently i’m hearing lot of dependant visa rejectionsl so don’t want to take any chance in that. Thanks mate for your prompt replies…will keep in touch..
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Abi Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Hi Krishna,
I’ve just received my new passport yesterday :)… My application took approximately 5-6 working days to get processed. I submitted it on Nov 8th and the date on my passport says that it was issued on Nov 15th (despite mine being a written one). So I’m quite happy with the service I got. My guess would that it should only take you the same or less time to get yours done in London. But don’t quote me on that because this whole blog spun out from the misery of what Grumpy Indian is going through. I wish he gets his passport sorted out ASAP.
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lets all use #hcilondon on twitter to put all our problems. we need media attention on this, there is no other way to get this corrected.
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hello
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Why don’t you get British citizenship and then apply for OCI. If you really want to keep Indian passport then at least you can travel to India with British passport and get it sorted in India.
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Grumpy Indian Reply:
February 3rd, 2012 at 9:20 am
Tx Mate! I know that.
British Citizenship is not my birth right, they don’t just dole it out to everyone who has been living in this country for over a decade. Well yes they do this only to illegal immigrants and all those refuse of society but not to people like us.
There are a lot of paper work to be sorted out before I could apply for that.
But yes British Citizenship has been in my mind since I got screwed up by these incompetent Indian bureaucrats.
Let’s see how it goes.
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Hi all, got my passport today after the old one expired after 10 years. To be frank i was quite worried especially after seeing what has happened to others. I was asked to collect my passport after a month but tried my luck after 20 days and luckily got it. But there are definitely things which can improve… For ex they need to have a online appointment booking system, this method of getting people to queue up early morning is really shameful. They should improve their website, ask somebody to answer phones, be courteous etc. at the same time people need to be more sensible. They wont dare to break the line or make noise in another embassy, but in indian embassy its free for all. I would still say a far better service than indian passport offices where you dont know whats happening unless you bribe people
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