The Delhi High Court has issued an interim nationwide direction barring new Goods and Services Tax registrations unless the applicant completes biometric Aadhaar authentication.
The order was made by Justices Anil Kshetrapal and Shail Jain in two petitions involving people whose Permanent Account Number and Aadhaar details were allegedly stolen and used to create fraudulent GST registrations. The resulting entities generated tax demands against victims who said they had never operated the businesses.
India’s current GST registration process can send applicants categorized as higher risk to a facilitation center for biometric verification. The interim direction expands that requirement to all new applicants across the country, although government authorities may return to the court with practical objections concerning implementation.
Aadhaar authentication confirms that identifying data and a submitted biometric or other approved factor correspond with a record held by the Unique Identification Authority of India. In the GST process, the additional in-person biometric step is intended to prevent stolen identity documents from being used to establish a tax account.
Figures placed before the court showed 2,800 fraudulent registrations associated with alleged tax evasion of Rs 150.85 billion during the 2023-24 financial year. The following year recorded 1,654 such registrations tied to Rs 131.09 billion in alleged evasion.
Biometric Aadhaar checks for GST registration had already been introduced on a state-by-state basis. Arunachal Pradesh, for example, implemented the verification process for selected applicants, combining document checks with biometric capture at designated centers.
The order also reflects a wider effort to prevent abuse of India’s national identity infrastructure. UIDAI has deactivated 25 million Aadhaar numbers linked to deceased holders and has been working on stronger controls against duplicate or irregular identity records.
The authority is separately seeking new liveness and contactless fingerprint technology for authentication, part of a modernization program intended to strengthen biometric checks while reducing dependence on dedicated sensors.
The GST petitions return to court on September 22. Until then, the interim order applies the biometric requirement nationally while giving authorities an opportunity to raise operational concerns. The direction concerns new GST registrations and does not itself decide the victims’ underlying tax liabilities, which remain before the court in the two identity-misuse cases.
Sources: JurisHour
–
By the ID Tech Editorial Team
