LAW: PASSPORT ‘SAFEKEEPING’ CAN INVITE A FINE OF QR 20,000 FOR YOUR COMPANY
Retention of employee passport by an employer is against the law.
Under current law company can be charged with QR 20,000 for each instance of passport retention.
Retention of passport is violation of the law as the passport is a “personal document” and no one is allowed to retain it other than its holder. This is because retaining the passport means an objection to travel and limitation to the person’s freedom and such authority or order can only be made by the court judge; not any other ordinary person. Moreover Article 9 of the Sponsorship law stipulates that the employer must return the passport to the expatriate employee when the residency procedure and the renewal processes are completed.
Your passport is usually the property of the government that issued it but many companies are withholding passports of employees despite it being an illegal practice.
It is completely illegal for sponsors to retain passports of their employees except for any genuine reason.
According to law sponsors can be heavily fined if they retain a worker’s passport or travel document after visa formalities are over.
Almost all companies who keep passport of their employees provide same lame excuse that they are keeping passports for safekeeping.
Under current law company can be charged with QR 20,000 for each instance of passport retention.
Sharvan kumar d who is an operation manager in one the construction company in Doha said that his company only keeps passport of employees if they have their no objection certificate, he further adds that many of his employees have lost their passport if they kept passports with them.
While employees have altogether different story many of the employee regard passport safe keeping more of a physiological barrier and while some term it as tactics to illegally retain them.
State of Qatar has taken very concrete steps in order to protect rights of employees even ministry has issued very strict guidelines that have drastically reduced the number of passport confiscation cases.
