The Supreme Court expressed its concerns over the impersonation of sureties and issued a notice to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to find out the solution of verification by the judicial officers for its authentication as part of good governance.
The bench of Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice V. Ramasubramanian observed, “The problem of impersonation of sureties is rampant in some states. We understand that there is a surety module software prepared by National Informatics Center in the Case Information Module for the Sub-ordinate Courts in India. But there is still no mechanism with the courts to verify the genuineness of the surety.”
The observation was made by the bench while considering the bail plea of an advocate, Rajesh Kumar Rathore, in connection with the offence of instructing one to appear as fake surety in order to procure release of a vehicle by way of interim custody.
An FIR was registered against Advocate Rajesh Kumar Rathore under section FIR under Sections 120 (B)/34, 193 (Punishment for false evidence in a judicial proceeding), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery of a document or electronic record for the purpose of cheating) of IPC.
Thereafter, Advocate Rathore approached Chhattisgarh High Court for bail which was rejected in April 2021, following which he approached Apex Court against the order of Chhattisgarh High Court.
The Court observed that they do not find any reason to entertain the present Special Leave Petition but they gave liberty to the petitioner to renew his request for bail after the framing of charges.
The bench also directed that the learned trial Court shall decide the application on merits in accordance with law.
While dealing with the case the bench highlighted the problem of impersonation of sureties which has become rampant in some states. The bench said, “We understand that there is a surety module software prepared by National Informatics Center in the Case Information Module for the Sub-ordinate Courts in India. But there is still no mechanism with the courts to verify the genuineness of the surety.”
Thereafter, the bench deemed it appropriate to issue notice to the Central Government and to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to find out the possibility of a mechanism for verification of the surety by the judicial officers for its authentication as part of good governance.
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“The desirability of issuing notice to the States and Union Territories shall be decided on the basis of response from the Union/ UIDAI”, the bench said in the order.
In the last paragraph of the order the bench noted that, “The matter regarding verification of the surety be placed before the Hon’ble Chief Justice for constitution of an appropriate bench as deemed appropriate.