All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday sought to know whether those included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam would be given certificates and why, if passports are not conclusive proof of identity, the passport holder’s nationality is mentioned as ‘Indian’ on them.

Mr. Owaisi was responding to Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy’s allegation that the Hyderabad parliamentarian had been misleading the public. In a post on X, Mr. Reddy alleged that Mr. Owaisi’s remarks on ‘passports and citizenship are legally incorrect’ as well as ‘misleading’. The Minister maintained that the Ministry of External Affairs’ clarification was that passports by themselves are not conclusive proof of citizenship. “Citizenship in India is governed by the Constitution and the Citizenship Act, 1955, and not by any single document,” he said.

“Why is it printed then on passports ‘Nationality: Indian’? Section 6 of the Passport Act says that a passport is not given if the applicant is not an Indian. Then what is this? It is a Central Act,” Mr. Owaisi told The Hindu, while citing the Supreme Court’s stand on passports in its judgment on the SIR.

“There is an entire process of mandatory police verification before passports are issued,” he said.

Referring to the National Register of Citizens, which was monitored by the Supreme Court, Mr. Owaisi said that ₹1,100 crore was spent on this exercise even as he sought to sought to know whether the government would issue certificates to persons other than the 19 lakh applicants that were excluded.