Sharma says: “I had applied for the passports of my two children, Shveta and Abhishek Sharma in August 2008. I gathered all the documents, filled up the forms and sent them to the Regional Passport Office in Chandigarh. Initially, I received no response from their side. Each time I inquired about the status of the passports, I was either made to wait outside or sent back without any reply.”

Fed up with the attitude of the officials, Sharma decided to shoot a complaint to the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.

And to his surprise, he received a reply from the RPO, saying that both the passports would be dispatched by January 21, 2009.

Sharma, however, says he has not received the passports till date.

He adds: “Basically irked by the fact that I had approached their seniors, officials at the RPO are now trying to get back to me by saying that one document is missing from the file. This is interesting, because if the form was missing from my file, how could the Delhi office clear the passports in the first place?”