TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (7) TMI 1330
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....ment agencies remained stand still for five years from the fraud having surfaced till today more so when the fraud was committed on these very authorities which should have awakened them and they ought to have moved with lightning speed for discharging their duties to set criminal action in motion. 3. The Petitioner by this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has sought for following reliefs:- "(a) That this Honourable Court be pleased to issue Writ of Mandamus or Writ in the nature of Mandamus directing (i) Union of India, through its Income Tax Department to cancel and suspend as well as inquire into the bogus PAN card Number ACVPL3264C. (ii) Direct the Unique Identification Authority of India to suspend and cancel the Aadhaar Card Number 592509117750. (iii) To direct the Andhra Bank having branch at Navrangpur Branch to freeze the account number 087211100005020 and close it. (iv) Issue direction directing the Chief Commissioner, Gujrat State GST, and Ahmedabad to suspend the GST Registration of No. 24ACVPL3264C1ZL. (v) To inquire into the grievance of the present Petitioner within such period as this Ho....
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....made therein. The Petitioner stated that a fraud appears to have been committed by using his identity since he has no connection whatsoever with M/s. Metro International Trading Company. (v) The Petitioner was faced with several other legal notices by various parties under Section 138 of the NI Act and the Petitioner replied to the same reiterating his stand that somebody has misused his identity and played fraud on these parties. (vi) On 27 January 2020, the Petitioner filed a complaint with the Dadar Police Station, Mumbai bringing to the notice of the law enforcement agency that someone has misused his identity and specifically brought to the attention of the police authorities the various legal notices received by the Petitioner which are referred to hereinabove. The authorities at Dadar Police Station informed the Petitioner on 11 March 2020 that upon enquiry it is informed that an incident of cheating has been reported in the State of Gujarat by using Petitioner's Aadhaar card and PAN card and, therefore, requested the Petitioner to approach the authorities at Gujarat since, the offence had been committed in the State of Gujarat. (vii) On 4 March 2020, the Petitioner....
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....s Advocate informed the PAN card Regional Office about the fraud having been committed and misuse of the Aadhaar card and PAN card. Along with the said letter, the Petitioner also enclosed his original PAN card and the copy of PAN card which was misused. In February 2021, the Petitioner's Advocate addressed a similar letter to Respondent No. 3, the entity engaged by the Income Tax Department for providing services of issuing PAN card. Respondent No. 3-UTI Infrastructure and Technology Services Ltd. replied to the said notice vide letter dated 17 March 2021. Respondent No. 3 in its reply stated that PAN card copy (original and fraud) annexed to the notice has not been processed by them and further they clarified that they are not an authority to cancel/suspend the PAN card issued to the Petitioner. (xiii) On 29 January 2021, the Petitioner brought to the notice of the Mumbai GST authorities the aforesaid fraud committed by impersonation of the Petitioner's identity. In the said letter, the Petitioner brought to the attention of the Mumbai GST authorities that the GST registration number has been obtained by an unknown person by using Aadhaar card of the Petitioner and GST registr....
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....ber 2021. The reply further states that jurisdiction for entertaining matters relating to forgery lies with the appropriate authority and not with Respondent No. 1. In the said reply, Respondent No. 1 has stated that if the Aadhaar number is deactivated, then the Petitioner will not be able to use the same for any transaction and neither Respondent No. 1 can issue another Aadhaar number to the same person. Respondent No. 1 brought to the attention of the Petitioner various Regulations with respect to privacy and confidentiality of biometric data. Respondent No. 1 also relied upon the authentication records of Aadhaar number holders which are available on the website for securing the identity of the person holding Aadhaar numbers. Respondent No. 1 referred to various provisions of the Aadhaar Act with regard to maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of details of Aadhaar number holders. 7. Respondent No. 3-UTI Infrastructure Technology and Services Limited filed its reply through Mrs. Sandhya Rapshe, Deputy Manager on 11 May 2022. Respondent No. 3 in its reply has referred to the Agreement dated 1 June 2019 entered between itself and the Income Tax Department for implementat....
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....rned counsel for the Petitioner, has filed written submissions and contended that the Respondents have failed to take necessary measures to ensure confidentiality of identity information and, therefore, the Petitioner is entitled to compensation. He further submitted that the Respondents have failed to comply with Regulations 28 and 29 of Aadhaar (Enrolment and Update) Regulation, 2016. He further submitted that even today on the portal of GST the same entity exists with the same name and Aadhaar number. He further submitted that the Bank, UIDAI, GST authorities and tax authorities have failed to carry out their duties cast upon them by the Aadhaar Act, GST Act and Income-tax Act and even Respondent No. 6 has failed to perform its duty as per the Master Circular of RBI. He submitted that none of the Respondents have filed any FIR on discovery of this fraud even after 4 to 5 years of the event having taken place. He submitted that the Petitioner had to face a lot of hardship and harassment by facing various criminal proceedings on account of fraud being played by an unknown person. He submitted that the Petitioner is a small-time businessman and hardly makes both ends meet. He furth....
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....otionless for 5 years till today when the fraud committed on these authorities should have awoken them and spurred them to move at lightning speed to set the criminal process in motion thereby discharging their lawful duties. 14. Although the Petitioner vide various letters since 2020 onwards informed each of the Respondents as to how his Aadhaar number and PAN number was misused by impersonation for opening bank account, obtaining GST registration, conducting business transactions, etc., none of the authorities initiated or took steps to lodge an FIR with the law enforcement agencies against unknown persons for having committed fraud on each of these authorities. The Petitioner informed the GST authorities at Gujarat about an unknown person fraudulently obtaining GST registration by using his Aadhaar number and PAN number way back in February 2021. Till today, it appears that the GST authorities at Gujarat have not lodged an FIR on account of fraud played on them for obtaining GST registration by unknown person. 15. Similarly, this was brought to the notice of Respondent No. 6- Bank in December 2020 itself and even after being aware of the same till today, we are informed th....
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....overy of fraud committed on them. The least that they could have done was to file an FIR with the police authorities for conducting investigation to prevent such events in the near future. The fraud played on all these Respondent authorities have been taken very lightly. We do not approve the inaction on the part of the Respondents in not filing an FIR or setting the criminal proceedings in motion. This is an issue which the highest authorities of each of the Respondents should introspect, investigate and fix accountability for such blatant inaction. We have our own doubts as to what would be achieved if criminal proceedings are set in motion after a period of five years of discovery of the fraud if, at all, the Respondents take the matter seriously now at least. 20. We may also note that the Petitioner himself in September 2021 filed a complaint with Navrangpura Police Station bringing to their notice the fraud being committed on various authorities by impersonating the Petitioner's identity. However, it appears that even the law enforcement agency of the State did not take the matter further. 21. This is indeed a very sad state of affairs where a citizen of this country was....
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....C Direction 2016, since Respondent No. 6 has not conducted any Aadhaar authentication. Had Respondent No. 6 conducted Aadhaar authentication in accordance with the 2016 Regulations and Master Directions of the RBI, then the photograph of the Petitioner would have got displayed on the screen of Respondent No. 6 and they could have verified the said photograph with the actual person in front of them for opening the bank account. Merely because Aadhaar number is not compulsory for opening a bank account and merely because self-certified copy of Aadhaar card is given to the bank for opening an account, it does not absolve Respondent No. 6 from carrying out Aadhaar authentication as per Respondent No. 6's own submission by following Regulation 2016 and the Master Directions of 2016. Had Respondent No. 6 conducted this authentication, then the account would not have been opened and immediately the unknown person could have been apprehended for playing fraud. The contention of Respondent No. 6 that they also relied on rent agreement, GST registration, etc. for opening the bank account and therefore they have taken due diligence and care cannot be accepted since Aadhaar number was also giv....
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....r having failed to get justice by repeatedly knocking the doors of the Respondents. 28. The fraud was first brought to the notice of Respondent No. 6 in March 2020 by the Petitioner, but it took the Respondent No. 6 almost nine months to reply to the Petitioner's letter of March 2020. Similarly Respondent No. 1-UIDAI was made aware of the fraud in January 2020 but it took Respondent No. 1 almost similar nine months to reply to the Petitioner's grievance and that too after the Petitioner sent a reminder. The fraud was also brought to the notice of the GST authorities by the Petitioner vide letter dated 10 February 2021, but the said Authority did not respond inspite of reminders sent by the Petitioner in November 2021. The GST authorities on the contrary took recovery action against the Petitioner by issuing attachment notice in spite of the said authority being made aware of the fraud. All these authorities were cognizant of the various criminal proceedings initiated against the Petitioner on account of transactions carried out by the unknown person impersonating the Petitioner's identity by using Aadhaar number and PAN number. Even today we were shown the portal of the GST ....
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....phic checks, biometric lock/unlock, promotion of mask Aadhaar to protect Aadhaar number, de-recognition of weaker ID documents, penal action for violation of Aadhaar Act, use of QR code, public awareness measures, etc. Mr. Mishra has also handed over SOP for carrying offline verification issued by Respondent No. 1 in February 2025. The Union of India has also issued an Office Memorandum dated 19 June 2023 for authentication/verification of Aadhaar and copies of the same have been marked to about 84 Secretariats of the Government of India for further action. Mr. Mishra has also handed over the advisory dated 31 May 2022 regarding strengthening of biometric authentication security and Circular No.9 of 2020 for fingerprint authentication and launch of face authentication. Circular No. 3 of 2024 issued by Respondent No. 1 deals with guidelines on requiring Aadhaar number for receipt of subsidy, benefit of service under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016. In our view, the suggestions made by the Petitioner's counsel are already in place as evident from the documents produced by counsel for Respondent No. 1. Similarly, the Aadhaar Act of 2016 and various Regulations made therein and the ....
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....so that the general public can take appropriate measures. For example, the Reserve Bank of India is regularly using electronic and social media for making public aware of various cyber frauds. Such action can also be adopted by Respondent No. 1 for public awareness. 36. We may conclude by observing and hoping that in the future when such frauds are brought to the notice of the authorities and law enforcement agencies by common citizens of this country then the authorities and law enforcement agencies would immediately take steps for finding the people behind such fraud and bringing them to justice and to take steps to prevent occurrence of the same in the near future. Delay in responding to such complaints and inaction in not initiating any criminal proceedings on discovery of such fraud and moreso when fraud is committed on the very statutory and regulatory authorities of this country then, in such a scenario, a higher degree of responsibility is required to be discharged by the officers of the regulatory authorities and enforcement agencies. 37. We may also observe that inspite of service being made on Respondent No. 5 being Commissioner of Income-Tax Mumbai and Respondent ....