Mumbai:
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has refused to issue a new passport to Iqbal Kaskar, younger brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
The MEA order says that passport cannot be issued to Iqbal, as he "is likely to use it to aid and abet Dawood Ibrahim".
Kaskar's original passport was confiscated when he was deported from Dubai some years ago. He was an accused in Sara-Sahara land grabbing case, but was acquitted by the lower court.
He had filed petition in the Bombay High Court last year complaining that his application for fresh passport had been rejected for no reasons.
High Court had then asked the MEA to give him a hearing and decide the case.
As the MEA rejected his application last month after hearing him, High Court today said that he was free to file a fresh petition challenging MEA's decision. The present petition was disposed of by the division bench of Justices Ranjana Desai and Mridula Bhatkar today.
Incidentally, the High Court was amused to notice that Iqbal has changed his name, adding Sheikh to it, and dropping the surname "Kaskar".
Speaking about dropping the surname, Iqbal's lawyer Jagadish Shetty said that Iqbal changed is name as he was being harassed by the Foreign Ministry.
Shetty also said that he has effected the change in the name through notification in the official gazette in April 2009.