Senate unanimously passes Passports (Amendment) Bill 2026

ISLAMABAD: The Senate unanimously passed a bill amending the Passports Act 1974, as the House demanded an immediate end to the permission to issue blue passports to the children of government officers.

The session on Monday was chaired by Deputy Chairman of the Senate Syedaal Khan Nasir. Senator Abdul Qadir presented the bill to amend the Passports Act. The deputy chairman put the motion to a vote and the House passed it unanimously. The Passports (Amendment) Bill 2026 was later also passed unanimously.

Debate on the bill

Senator Abdul Qadir said the children of Grade 21 government officers get blue passports, and an MNA gets one as soon as he is elected. He said the same rule should be brought in for senators. Either blue passports for government employees should also be abolished, or senators should be given them too.

Federal Minister for Law Azam Nazeer Tarar said that in the National Assembly, taking the oath once is counted as a term, while in the Senate an official passport is not issued until the six-year term is complete. According to him, the interior minister supports giving senators passports in the same way as the National Assembly. He said the children of retired Grade 21 and 22 officers should also not get blue passports. He also said no one needs a no-objection certificate (NOC).

Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry said he opposed giving passports to former parliamentarians, and that if the children of government officers were getting them, this should be stopped. According to him, the issue of blue passports affects the ranking of the Pakistani passport. When visa-free entry to another country is discussed, they ask about blue passports. There are 75,000 blue passports in the country, and their number has already been reduced.

Talal Chaudhry said the law minister was bringing a bill to take back blue passports from the children of former secretaries. He said none of the 30,000 passports that were withdrawn belonged to a parliamentarian. Under the rules, members can get a two-year passport, and no one has asked parliamentarians for an NOC.

Objection to NOC

Senator Abid Sher Ali said members of parliament have to obtain an NOC from the Ministry of Interior for a blue passport, which he called an insult to senators and a denial of their right. He said that in the interior committee the interior secretary said he was answerable to the minister, not the committee, while the Director General Passports cited the Ministry of Interior’s instructions.

Senator Nasir Butt also demanded an end to the NOC condition. He said there were 78,000 blue passports in the country, including with the children of retired officers, and these should be cancelled.

Senator Faisal Saleem Rehman said the Deputy Chairman of the Senate should get a diplomatic passport, not an official one. Senator Amir Chishti said the passport of a senator’s daughter was not being made, and that Senator Zarqa’s passport had not been made for six months.

Senator Dilawar Khan said the department had issued 30,000 blue passports. He said one of those responsible should be made an example of, and an inquiry should be held into the period in which they were issued.

Meanwhile, the amendment bill on the salaries and allowances of members of parliament was withdrawn in the Senate.