New Delhi, Sep 10 (PTI)  The Delhi High Court has ordered that Goods and Services Tax (GST) registration is no longer permissible without biometric-based Aadhaar authentication. A bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Shail Jain passed the order on petitions alleging fraudulent GST registrations using the petitioners' PAN card and Aadhaar card numbers.

In the order passed on September 8, the bench observed that earlier, while answering a question on fraudulent GST registration in Parliament, the minister concerned disclosed that in 2023-2024, there were 2,800 fraudulent GST registrations involving Rs 15,085 crore of tax evasion, and that in 2024–2025, there were 1,654 fraudulent registrations and ₹13,109 crore of tax evasion were detected.

The bench said although it was also disclosed that biometric authentication through Aadhaar would be mandatory for GST registration, the statement had not yet been implemented, which resulted in continuous fake registrations using stolen or frozen PAN/Aadhaar details.

Noting that the authorities failed to demonstrate any difficulty in mandating such a regime, the court ordered, "Hence, for the time being, directions are issued to all the authorities across the country not to allow any GST Registration without biometric-based Aadhaar authentication henceforth."  In its order, the court said it was initially compelled to request the authorities to "rise to the situation" to deal with the government's revenue loss and the harassment of innocents, expecting them to address the matter with all seriousness.

The court granted the authorities liberty to file objections regarding any practical difficulty in its implementation and listed the matter for hearing on September 22.

In its earlier order, the court observed that the authorities did not dispute that fraudulent GST registrations, obtained using the PAN card and Aadhaar card numbers of innocent citizens, had been rampant since the enforcement of the CGST Act, 2017.

"Nearly nine years have elapsed; however, the respondents have failed to curb these malpractices, which not only affect citizens who have nothing to do with such GST registrations, but also result in huge loss to the Government," it had said. PTI ADS ASD ASD