The Orissa High Court on Tuesday set aside the State government’s refusal to grant a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to a senior doctor seeking a passport, stressing that a citizen’s right to travel abroad cannot be quietly curtailed through departmental delays. The bench, hearing the matter in a packed courtroom, noted that such rejections indirectly “chip away at personal liberty,” a line that immediately drew attention inside the hall.
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Background
Dr. Ashok Kumar Behera, a government doctor due to retire in January 2026, applied for a passport so he could visit his daughter and grandchild in Singapore. Like all government employees, he needed an NOC from his department. His 2022 request was turned down because he was accused of being “unauthorisedly absent” since 2013 and had multiple disciplinary proceedings pending.
Even after one vigilance case resulted in acquittal and one departmental case was dropped, a fresh NOC request in 2024 met the same fate. Frustrated with the repeated denials, Dr. Behera approached the High Court once again. His lawyers argued that the State had effectively frozen his ability to meet his own family abroad without any legal backing.
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Court’s Observations
Justice Sashikanta Mishra went through the long trail of disciplinary proceedings and the government’s reliance on a 2014 Home Department letter to justify withholding the certificate. The Court made it clear that the letter-an internal circular-cannot override a fundamental right. “The bench observed, ‘An executive instruction cannot cut down a citizen’s liberty to travel when no enacted law says so.’”
The Court recalled the celebrated Maneka Gandhi ruling, where the Supreme Court held that the right to travel abroad forms part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21. Justice Mishra also drew attention to a basic legal principle that seemed forgotten: every accused person is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
In a telling remark, the Court noted that the pending departmental inquiries had been dragging on for years and could not be used as a “perpetual leash on someone’s movement.” Another line that caused murmurs in the courtroom was when the judge said the 2014 circular “acts as an embargo on fundamental rights, though indirectly.”
The bench also examined the Passport Manual, 2020, which requires government employees to submit either an NOC or a prior-intimation declaration. But since the validity of this requirement was not challenged, the Court avoided entering that debate. Instead, it emphasised that even within the existing framework, the State had no lawful basis to indefinitely deny an NOC simply because a proceeding existed on paper.
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Decision
Concluding the matter after nearly an hour of detailed reasoning, the Court held that refusal of NOC solely due to pending inquiries was legally unsustainable and constitutionally impermissible. “The decision to refuse NOC… amounts to infringement of the fundamental right to liberty,” the bench declared.
The Court quashed both rejection orders dated 12 July 2022 and 21 March 2025. It directed the authorities to issue Dr. Behera an NOC “without any further delay and in any case, not later than six weeks from today.”
Case Title: Dr. Ashok Kumar Behera v. State of Odisha (2025)
Case Type: Writ Petition (W.P.(C) No. 5362 of 2025)
Court: High Court of Orissa, Cuttack
Judge: Justice Sashikanta Mishra
Date of Judgment: 11 November 2025
