New Delhi, Sept. 10 -- 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 Rs.15,085 crore in tax evasion. In 2024-25, 1,654 such fraudulent registrations were detected, involving tax evasion of Rs.13,109 crore.

The bench further noted...