The Delhi High Court has directed authorities across the country not to allow any GST registration without biometric-based Aadhaar authentication, taking serious note of the continued misuse of stolen or frozen PAN and Aadhaar details to obtain fraudulent GST registrations.
A Division Bench of Justice Anil Khetarpal and Justice Shail Jain passed the direction in petitions concerning allegations of fraudulent GST registrations obtained using the PAN and Aadhaar details of innocent persons. The Court noted that the practice had continued despite the authorities stating that biometric Aadhaar authentication had been made mandatory. The Court observed:
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“At the first instance, this Court is compelled to request the competent authorities to rise to the situation, which is resulting in the loss of revenue to the government and harassment of innocents. The authorities are expected to take up the matter with all seriousness.”
The Court took note of figures placed before it showing 2,800 fraudulent GST registrations in 2023-24, involving detected tax evasion of ₹15,085 crore, while 1,654 fraudulent registrations involving ₹13,109 crore in detected tax evasion were reported in 2024-25.
The Bench observed that despite more than a year having passed since biometric Aadhaar authentication was stated to have been made mandatory, fraudulent registrations using stolen or frozen PAN/Aadhaar details continued. It therefore directed all authorities across the country not to allow any GST registration without biometric-based Aadhaar authentication henceforth, while giving authorities liberty to place objections regarding practical difficulties in implementation.
The Court also asked authorities to examine suggestions by Senior Advocate Tarun Gulati, including mandatory facial recognition, video-based verification of PAN and Aadhaar, preservation of IP address and device-location data, physical verification of business premises and real-time alerts to PAN holders when their details are used for GST registration.
The matter will next be heard on September 22, 2026.
