New Delhi, Sept. 12 -- The Delhi High Court has held that an adverse police verification report (PVR) can constitute a valid ground to deny issuance or renewal of a passport, observing that the Passport Authority is entitled to rely on such a report while considering an application. Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, in a September 5 judgment, said the Passport Authority must independently apply its mind to a passport application and the material before it, but cannot disregard the factual verification conducted by police authorities. The court said the Passport Authority ordinarily has no independent mechanism to conduct the kind of verification of antecedents undertaken by police and is therefore entitled to consider a PVR while deciding wheth...