Need help: Travelled to india, but passport had expired

[manmanSS]

Hello guys,

Recently my grand mother was seriously Ill and thus my parents had to travel back to india on an emergency basis. They travelled air india from chicago to mumbai.

Problem was my moms passport had been expired 2 days prior while my dads was vaild. Both are all Canadian citizens and had valid visas to India. The authorities at the mumbai airport did not allow my mom to officially land and treated her very badly. Even after explaining my grand mothers dire condition and stating that they were both doctors and also born in India. They did not budge, more importantly they did NOT allow her to contact the canadian embassy in India. She was told that she had no right to do so, and had to get back on the next air india flight.

I was wondering if there was a way to get some accountability out of this whole issue. I have heard of a relative who was in a similar situation and was granted a 24 hr stay to sort out their passport problems with the embassy. I was very shocked that they did not let her contact the canadian embassy.

Also isnt it to a small part some responsibility on behalf of air india, they spent so much time at the terminal checking the passport, can they allow a passenger on a plane without a valid passport?

I do agree that it was to some degree our fault that we did not check the passport but is there any discourse to this?

thanks

 

[rogerkint]

not much

No country in the world will let you enter with an expired travel document except the country you are a citizen of (i suppose). I do not understand why they would not let her contact the Canadian Embassy - quite possibly they were trying to hide their mistake of letting her come to India on an expired passport.

I am not sure there is much you can do here - it was your mom's responsibility to get a new passport before she left the country. You could try to do something about them denying her access to Canadian Counsulate - knowing how things work in India - I would not hold my breath - try to have the Canadian Embassy pursue it.