Govt withdraws plan to introduce orange colour passports
BY MPOST BUREAU30 Jan 2018 11:47 PM IST
MPOST BUREAU30 Jan 2018 11:47 PM IST
New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs has withdrawn its proposal to introduce orange colour passports for ECR category, that is those who have not passed 10th grade at school, after facing flak for the "discriminatory" order.
The decision to withdraw the order comes just a day after the Kerala High Court issued notices to the central government and the Passport Authority of India over the proposal to have two different colour passports.
The MEA had said in the first week of January that passport holders with ECR (Emigration Check Required) status would soon be issued orange passports but had not released any other details of the plan, including a timeline for implementation.
Critics of the proposal had said that the order fell afoul of the right to equality enshrined in the Constitution as it amounts to discrimination and segregation of persons solely on the basis of their education and economic status.
Legal experts had also pointed out that it could increase the vulnerability of workers, who are often duped by middlemen who promise them jobs.
The advocate who had filed the PIL in the Kerala HC had argued that "there could arise situations whereby it is easily revealed to the foreign authorities that the persons are uneducated and unskilled, and by making the vulnerable state of the person so evident and apparent, chances of such persons being exploited will be increased."
Congress president Rahul Gandhi had termed the decision unacceptable. "Treating India's migrant workers like second-class citizens is completely unacceptable," he had tweeted.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, too, had voiced concerns over the plan and asked the Centre to rectify the order.
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