Gurgaon: An investigation into a minor’s passport application has lifted the veil on a link between falsified documents, after officials discovered that a family used multiple identities to obtain passports despite obvious discrepancies in names, addresses and dates of birth, and still passed police verification.According to police, the boy and his parents each used two identities to apply for the passports, and several applications received clear police verification reports despite significant discrepancies. The trigger came when the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in Delhi found overlapping documents attached to different applications submitted by the same family during a system check.An FIR was registered at the Sohna town police station on Wednesday against unnamed accused under sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC, and Section 12(1)(b) of the Passport Act, 1967, representing charges of cheating, forgery, use of forged documents, criminal conspiracy and passport fraud.The case came to light after a minor applied for a passport this year as ‘Akash Chawla’, submitting a birth certificate and an Aadhaar card. During scrutiny, the RPO found that a passport had already been issued to the same child in 2021 with a different identity – ‘Jay Batra’. Police said the two applications contained different names, parents’ details, addresses and dates of birth, but both had passed police verification.The discovery prompted officials to examine the family’s records. Police said the father got a passport in 2023 as ‘Sanjeev Chawla’ after receiving a clear police verification report. However, records showed that he had applied earlier in 2012 as Dhiraj Sharma, but that application was closed after an adverse police report.The mother also allegedly used two identities. She first applied in 2012 as ‘Deepa Sharma’ and then got another passport in 2023 as ‘Seema Chawla’. According to the complaint, both requests passed police verification.In its complaint to the Haryana police, the RPO said that repeated identity changes and use of forged supporting documents pointed to the involvement of an organized fraud. He added that the Haryana STF had already been examining similar suspicious passport cases for the past year. In an earlier investigation, the STF had registered a case against a Delhi Police sub-inspector in connection with a fake passport nexus that allegedly helped some gangsters flee India.Police said the passports with numbers Y5262437, 37548648, K2345234 and 137548201 were allegedly obtained fraudulently with the help of an agent who used fake names, forged documents and made-up addresses. The case, dated May 23, 2026, has been assigned to deputy sub-inspector Amir Singh. Police are examining the role of all those involved, including the people who prepared the forged documents and those who approved the verification reports despite the discrepancies.Police said they would launch an investigation into how the applications passed verification.
