New Delhi, Sept. 11 -- The Delhi high court has directed authorities to make biometric-based Aadhaar authentication mandatory across the country before any person or entity is given a registration under the GST regime. A bench of justices Anil Kshetarpal and Shail Jain issued the direction in its September 8 order, noting that, as per data provided by the Centre in Parliament, 2,800 fraudulent GST registrations were obtained using stolen or forged PAN or Aadhaar details in 2023-24, involving detection of Rs.15,085 crore in tax evasion and in 2024-25, 1,654 such fraudulent registrations were detected, involving tax evasion of Rs.13,109 crore. Court 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 measure had not been fully implemented, and fake GST registrations using stolen or forged PAN and Aadhaar details continued to be obtained. shruti kakkar...