Aadhaar card verification a must for sureties in courts: HC

Now, the authorities in the states and at the Centre have been told to put in place the requisite infrastructure within four months. The infrastructure for biometric verification of the Aadhaar Card at the court premises would be provided by the NIC, with the technical assistance of UIDAI, the court notes.

To deal with the menace of fake sureties, the Punjab and Haryana high court has made Aadhaar verification mandatory in the courts of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.

The courts have been told that while accepting surety, they would insist on complete details, including an Aadhaar card. The principal district judge and the chief judicial magistrates would inspect the register of sureties periodically, preferably after every three months.

“The petitioners are the persons who faked their identity while furnishing surety bonds pursuant to the bail orders passed by the courts. The menace is widespread. These five bail applications before this bench is testimony to the said fact. Repeatedly the Constitutional courts have underlined necessity of separate law relating to bails. The chorus has only grown louder in recent times,” the bench of justice Pankaj Jain said while dealing with a bunch of cases highlighting the menace of fake sureties and making it mandatory for authentication of the same.

Now the court has ordered that the magistrate concerned will verify the Aadhaar card of the accused in the case of personal bond and the Aadhaar cards of the sureties as well in the case of surety bonds.

As per lawyer, Aditya Sanghi, who was amicus curiae in the case, it was in March, that the court had sought ways from the Union ministry of electronic and IT and other concerned departments to deal with the menace.

“The professional sureties have become the norm as the genuine sureties are wary to encumber their property due to prolonged trials. Delay in trials is leading to a situation where genuine surety is being pushed out by professional surety. Just like it is famously said, “bad money keeps good money out of circulation”. The other reason for mushrooming of professional sureties is the practice being adopted by the criminal courts of insisting upon the sureties and not releasing the accused on personal bonds,” the bench recorded while issuing a slew of directions.

Now, the authorities in the states and at the Centre have been told to put in place the requisite infrastructure within four months. The infrastructure for biometric verification of the Aadhaar Card at the court premises would be provided by the NIC, with the technical assistance of UIDAI, the court added.

The courts have been told that while accepting surety, they would insist on complete details, including an Aadhaar card. The principal district judge and the chief judicial magistrates would inspect the register of sureties periodically, preferably after every three months. The court also directed the registrar general, to issue necessary circulars to all the courts and frame necessary rules in this regard.