Bombay High Court: The present writ petition was filed by the petitioner under Article 226 of the Constitution, after his Aadhaar and PAN details were fraudulently used to open a bank account, obtain GST registration and conduct business transactions and despite repeated complaints, none of the statutory agencies including Unique Identification Authority of India (‘UIDAI’), Income Tax Department, Union Bank, and GST authorities took timely action. The Division Bench of M.S. Sonak and Jitendra Jain*, JJ., while allowing the petition held that the prolonged inaction of the statutory and regulatory authorities amounted to a serious dereliction of their duties, emphasising that they failed to discharge their legal obligations by not taking any action since the last five years of the discovery of fraud committed on them. Further, the Court imposed cost of Rs 10,000 on each of the authorities, which was to be paid to the petitioner for their dereliction of duty.
Background:
The case arose when the petitioner received a legal notice on 28-12-2019 from an advocate based in Rajkot, alleging failure to pay rent of Rs 75,000 towards a property at Rajkot. The petitioner clarified that he had never entered into leave and license agreement as mentioned in the notice and had no link to Metro International Trading Company, which initiated the alleged transaction. On 14-2-2020, the petitioner received another notice under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (‘NI Act’), for dishonoured cheque amounting to Rs 13,83,200, issued by the same company. The petitioner rejected these claims, pointing out that his identity had been fraudulently misused.
The petitioner received several other similar legal notices and in response, on 27-1-2020, approached Dadar Police Station, Mumbai, filling a complaint and informing authorities about the misuse of his identity. The police authorities informed him that the alleged fraud had occurred in Gujarat and advised him to approach the authorities there. Further, letters were also sent to Andhra Bank (later merged with Union Bank of India), stating that the petitioner had never opened an account in their Ahmedabad branch. Eventually, Union Bank on 1-12-2020 addressed a letter to the petitioner that an account had been opened in July 2019 under the name of Metro International Trading Company, under his proprietorship, using forged KYC documents that had his name but different photograph.
The petitioner then informed UIDAI and the Income Tax Department that fraud had been committed by using his Aadhaar card and PAN card number on which the photograph of some other person was embossed. Despite submitting the original and the misused documents for comparison, UIDAI and the other authorities delayed their responses. The petitioner had to send multiple reminders to the authorities before receiving any acknowledgments.
On 29-1-2021, the petitioner informed the Mumbai GST authorities about the fraud committed by impersonation of the petitioner’s identity and requested the authorities to cancel the GST registration. Subsequently, the Mumbai GST authorities forwarded the letter to the Gujarat GST authorities since the Registration Certificate was issued by them. However, even after repeated reminders, neither the Mumbai nor the Gujarat GST authorities acted. The petitioner also faced proceedings before the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate and was served with an attachment notice from the Gujarat State Tax Department.
Analysis and Decision:
The Court expressed its displeasure over the inaction of each respondent following the fraud committed by unknown persons, although these respondents were statutory and government authorities. The Court observed that, despite repeated letters since 2020 regarding the fraudulent misuse of the petitioner’s identity, 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 them. The Court stated that UIDAI, even after being the custodian of data of millions of Indians, did not file any complaint until the present hearing.
The Court emphasised that the Union Bank adopted a casual approach and failed to perform Aadhaar authentication under the 2016 KYC Directions and RBI’s Master Circular. The Court noted that, had the Bank conducted Aadhaar authentication as mandated, the petitioner’s photograph would have been displayed and could have been verified with the person present. The Court highlighted that, due to fraud played on statutory and regulatory authorities by impersonating the petitioner’s identity, the petitioner faced criminal proceedings for cheque dishonour and property attachment by the GST authority.
The Court noted that even the police did not help the petitioner, and although the respondents had resources to counter fraud, the petitioner had to engage an Advocate for replying to notices, making complaints, and filing the petition after failing to get justice. The Court concluded that there was no doubt in its mind that the petitioner had undergone tremendous mental harassment and agony due to the fraud and the respondents’ inaction.
The Court observed that this was a case where all statutory, regulatory, and law enforcement agencies had stood motionless for five years, when the fraud committed on them should have awoken them and spurred them to act swiftly to set the criminal process in motion and discharge their lawful duties. The Court highlighted that it was the duty of the law enforcement agencies to take timely action when such frauds were brought to their notice, and such action would have acted as a deterrent. The Court further noted that in the instant case, the fraud could have been detected early had the respondents authenticated the Aadhaar number, but their inaction after failing in their duty aggravated the situation.
The Court stated that the petitioner’s counsel’s suggestions of including QR code for authentication, mobile OTP verification, procedure for discarding documents, information by SMS upon usage, criminal proceedings for misuse of Aadhaar, and taking assistance of Artificial Intelligence, were already in place. The Court opined that UIDAI should take steps to make public aware of authorities/entities who could insist on Aadhaar number and these authorities/entities who were permitted to use Aadhaar number for authentication should be equipped with necessary technology for authentication and such authentication should be done in accordance with the Aadhaar (Authentication) Regulations, 2021.
While allowing the petition, the Court directed the GST department to delete the petitioner’s Aadhaar and PAN numbers from their database. Additionally, the Court imposed cost of Rs 10,000 on each of the authorities, which was to be paid to the petitioner for their dereliction of duty.
[Vilas Prabhakar Lad v. Unique Identification Authority of India, Writ Petition No. 3586 of 2021, decided on 21-7-2025]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Jitendra Jain
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Uday Warunjikar a/w Jenish D. Jain.
For the Respondents: Jitendra B. Mishra a/w Ashutosh Mishra and Rupesh Dubey, Pradeep Yadav, Nainesh Amin i/by N. N. Amin & Co.
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