Fake Aadhaar cards used for property registration: Madras High Court directs Sub-Registrar to file police complaint

Madras High Court orders police complaint after fake Aadhaar cards were used in property registration

After coming across a shocking incident of four fake Aadhaar cards having been used to register documents related to an immovable property, the Madras High Court has directed the Thiruporur Sub-Registrar in Chengalpattu district to file a police complaint.

Justice P.T. Asha also decided to monitor the police investigation since it was a serious case and ordered that the Sub-Registrar also make an entry in the official records regarding the fraudulent registration that had taken place in 2021.

The judge made it clear that the Sub-Registrar must not register any further documents in the future if they traced the title on the basis of the two documents that had been registered fraudulently. The orders were passed on a writ petition filed by C. Subbulakshmi of Kotturpuram in Chennai.

C. Suraj, counsel for the petitioner, told the court that the property actually belonged to her husband C. Vivekananda who had purchased it in 1973 and died in 1985. Thereafter, the property devolved on the petitioner and her three children. However, two of her children relinquished their rights.

In 2000, a partition deed was executed between the petitioner and her son C. Santhosh Kumar who got 20 cents each. In 2021, the petitioner and her son came to know about a settlement deed and a general power of attorney having been registered with respect to their property.

On inquiry, they found that the documents had been registered by some impersonators using fake Aadhaar cards. Therefore, Mr. Suraj sought an interim direction to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to disclose whether those Aadhaar cards were genuine or not.

Accordingly, when the judge called for UIDAI’s response, Central government senior standing counsel K. Srinivasa Murthy reported that all the four Aadhaar card numbers that had been used for the property registration were fake and no such numbers were available in the UIDAI’s database.