Punjab and Haryana High Court seeks seamless Aadhaar verification in courts

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, March 26

In a significant judgment liable to curb the menace of impersonation of securities following inadequate system to confirm their authenticity, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has called for putting in place the Aadhaar card verification mechanism.

Verification of sureties

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This court has requested the Additional Solicitor-General to get instructions from UIDAI as well as NIC with regard to provisioning of online access at the courts so that the Aadhaar cards provided by the sureties can be verified seamlessly and promptly. Justice Pankaj Jain

Justice Pankaj Jain has asked the Additional Solicitor-General of India to obtain instructions from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and National Informatics Centre (NIC) regarding online access at the courts to swiftly authenticate Aadhaar cards provided by the sureties.

“This court has requested the Additional Solicitor-General (ASG) to get instructions from UIDAI as well as NIC with regard to provisioning of online access at the courts so that the Aadhaar cards provided by the sureties, can be verified seamlessly and promptly,” Justice Jain observed.

The direction came on five petitions against Haryana and Punjab relating “to the offence committed by the persons furnishing surety to the accused, who were ordered to be admitted to bail”.

At the onset, amicus curiae Aditya Sanghi placed before the Bench a judgment passed by the Karnataka High Court on the issue. Referring to the judgment, Justice Jain observed the core issue in the court’s opinion was not “what document is required to be furnished by the surety, rather it is which document furnished by the surety can be easily verified to be correct”.

Recognising the extensive data bank and verification processes maintained by UIDAI under the Aadhaar card system, Justice Jain highlighted the potential for using the document as reliable verification documents.

He also referred to a Supreme Court judgment on the rampant problem of impersonation of sureties in some states. Acknowledging the existence of surety-module software developed by NlC in “the case information module for the subordinate courts”, the apex court, among other things, observed there was still no mechanism with the courts to verify the genuineness of the surety. The case has been fixed for further hearing on April 10.