SRINAGAR: Jammu & Kashmir High Court ordered Thursday revival of Kashmir student’s passport so that she can complete her MBBS in Iran.The authorities had impounded Ibra Khan’s passport based on a CID adverse report about an FIR against her father in 1997, although she was born in 2005. The report cited “aspersions” against Khan’s father in relation to the case and “apprehensions that she may join anti-India forces”.“This court has the highest concern towards the security of the country. In a very limited intervention and keeping in view that the appellant (student) has completed half her MBBS, we dispose of the appeal by directing that the passport be revived for the remaining period of her course,” a division bench of Chief Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati and Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal said.Khan is pursuing MBBS at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She was issued a passport in Oct 2024 but received showcause notices March 27, 2026 and April 9, 2026 from passport authorities over her father’s case before her passport was impounded on May 4, 2026.Khan moved the HC but a single-judge bench dismissed her petition saying it found no reason to interfere in the decision by authorities and citing an alternative remedy of appeal under Passports Act, 1967.Khan then approached the division bench. Her counsel Salih Pirzada argued that she began pursuing MBBS in 2024 but owing to the prevailing turmoil in the region, she returned to India. It was during this period that she received the notices, followed by the passport’s impounding without clear reasons.
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J&K’s additional advocate-general (AAG) cited the adverse CID report and claimed Khan had not replied to the show-cause notices, leaving authorities with no alternative but to impound the passport.Following this, the division bench of Justices Bhati and Nargal called for the CID report, which cited the case against Khan’s father and “apprehensions” about the security and sovereignty of the country.Khan’s counsel Pirzada contended that the state had not been able to pinpoint the reasons for such apprehensions given that the case against her father dated to 1997 whereas she herself was born eight years later.The division bench eventually allowed Khan’s appeal by ordering the passport’s revival, saying the authorities were free to impose conditions and directing her to comply with any such riders.
