Two Indian passports in one name

Question

My mother had passport in 1981 which she lost she made a new passport in 1986 and went out of india for 3-4 years.
When she came back she found her old 1981 passport. She renewed her old passport in 1992 but never used that passport. She used her new passport always.
The new passport was renewed in 1996 and 2006.

Now she made a application for renewal in 2016. The authorities have found out that she had another passport also which was renewed in 1992.
The old passport was lost in 2006 in floods.

The passport office is asking where is that passport. What to do now?
They have told to go to old issuing office and get something written

Answer 1

You need to give a written affidavit saying that you lost the old passport in the floods and it cannot be recovered/retraced.
Another question, when you lost the passport in floods, did you make any formal complaint to the passport office/police saying that the passport is lost...do you have anything that proves the fact?
If not, you are going to have to run a lot of different departments to get this fixed.