The Delhi High Court has directed that Aadhaar-based biometric verification be carried out before new GST registrations are granted, responding to a pattern of registrations obtained on stolen or misused PAN and Aadhaar details.
The direction came in Neha v. Union of India (2026 LiveLaw (Del) 836), decided in the second week of September 2026, as part of the High Court's continuing scrutiny of GST registration fraud — a problem that has fed a wider ecosystem of fake input tax credit claims and shell entities operating on borrowed or stolen identities.
Under the framework the Court has endorsed, an applicant for GST registration will need to complete biometric Aadhaar authentication as a condition of approval, giving tax authorities a stronger check against registrations filed in someone else's name without their knowledge. For genuine applicants, this adds a verification step to an otherwise online process; for the department, it is aimed at closing a gap that has been exploited at scale.
The order fits a broader pattern of courts and tax authorities tightening identity verification around GST compliance, and follows earlier administrative moves by the GST Network to flag registrations for physical or biometric verification in high-risk categories. Businesses applying for fresh GST registration in Delhi should expect biometric verification to be built into the process going forward, rather than treated as an exceptional requirement reserved for flagged applications.