The Delhi high court has directed authorities to make biometric-based Aadhaar authentication mandatory before granting any Goods and Services Tax (GST) registration, citing the continued use of stolen or forged PAN and Aadhaar details to obtain fraudulent registrations.
A bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Shail Jain issued the direction in its September 8 order, noting that the finance minister had informed the Rajya Sabha that 2,800 fraudulent GST registrations were obtained using stolen or forged PAN/Aadhaar details in 2023-24, involving detection of ₹15,085 crore in tax evasion. In 2024-25, 1,654 such fraudulent registrations were detected, involving tax evasion of ₹13,109 crore.
The bench further noted that, although biometric Aadhaar-based authentication had been made mandatory for GST registration, more than a year had passed since the minister’s statement in Parliament and the measure had not been fully implemented. Fake GST registrations using stolen or forged PAN and Aadhaar details continued to be obtained.
“Minister of State in the Ministry Of Finance, while answering the question on fraudulent GST Registration has disclosed in the Rajya Sabha that in the year 2023-2024, there were 2800 fraudulent GST Registrations obtained by using stolen or frozen PAN/ AADHAR details involving detection of Rs.15,085 Crores of tax evasion. In the year 2024-2025, the number of fraudulent GST Registrations were 1654 and tax evasion of Rs.13109 Crores was detected. It was disclosed that biometric AADHAR based authentication has been made mandatory for the GST Registration. It appears that despite passage of more than one year, the statement given by the minister on the floor of the house has not been fully implemented, resulting in continuous fake GST Registration obtained using stolen or frozen PAN/ AADHAR details,” the court said.
It added, “Hence, for the time being, directions are issued to all the authorities across the country not to allow any GST Registration without biometric based AADHAR authentication henceforth.”
{{/usCountry}}It added, “Hence, for the time being, directions are issued to all the authorities across the country not to allow any GST Registration without biometric based AADHAR authentication henceforth.”
{{/usCountry}}The court passed the order in a petition filed by a woman who alleged that fraudulent GST registrations had been created by third parties using her PAN and Aadhaar details, resulting in the siphoning off of over ₹4.46 crore from her savings account with Punjab National Bank.
It was her case that, upon inquiry, the bank informed her that it had received a purported GST notice seeking payment of the said amount to a GST authority. She lodged complaints with the concerned GST authorities in March 2026. However, after no action was taken, she approached the high court seeking directions for an effective investigation.
The Centre and GST authorities had maintained that biometric-based Aadhaar authentication is carried out only if the system identifies the case as ‘risky’ on the basis of various parameters and data analytics.
The matter will be next heard on September 22.