In a writ petition filed before the Bombay High Court by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), Navi Mumbai, seeking a direction upon the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) (respondent 1) to disclose information, including identity and authentication record of respondent 3 who was an accused in a matter registered with the ATS police station, a Division Bench of Justice A.S. Gadkari and Justice Kamal Khata allowed the petition and directed the provision of documents within two weeks.
The prosecution’s case was that five Bangladeshi nationals had illegally entered Indian and had taken shelter in Panvel, Raigad. Accordingly, the police officers of ATS conducted a raid on 13-03-2018 in a residential premises where five Bangladeshi nationals were found residing, and all of them were arrested. During investigation, it came to light that the five persons presented themselves as Indian nationals and procured a PAN card, Election ID card, and Aadhar card.
An application was filed by the prosecution before the trial court seeking information/documents supplied by the accused persons to the Aadhar authority for obtaining Aadhar cards. By an order dated 04-04-2018, the Additional Sessions Judge directed UIDAI to supply the requisite information and the documents were provided to the prosecution. However, the information/documents of respondent 3 were not received till date.
The Court stated that foreign nationals infiltrating Indian border have penetrated deep inside our country and that they present themselves as Indian citizens after procuring PAN card, Election ID card and Aadhar card from Authorities by submitting bogus documents. It was said that this was a matter of serious concern which needed to be investigated by the investigating agency expeditiously.
It was held that the persons/co-accused helping such foreign nationals in infiltrating the Indian border and helping them settle in our country must also be thoroughly interrogated and must be prosecuted for their illegal acts if their role is revealed. Thus, the petition was allowed and the Court directed UIDAI to provide the documents submitted by respondent 3 to procure an Aadhar card within two weeks.
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