Originally Posted by
GUWonder
There are exceptions to that. Air India has previously been granted legal authorization to transport some persons from the US or Europe to India without passports. It's on a case by case basis and there are some routines involved when it has been done.
Yes these are the persons who have been deported and have "lost" the passport. They are issued temporary travel authorization by the local Indian embassy, valid only for travel to India (after proving themselves as Indian nationals).
And for those who book domestic flights via other countries (other than Nepal), they certainly know that a passport would be required and most likely would be taking it with them. But with fares in India being quite low, I doubt if any are doing this.