Calcutta High Court says Aadhaar, PAN, voter ID don't prove Indian citizenship

Published 29 July 2026 · india

The Calcutta High Court has held that voter identity cards, Aadhaar and PAN cards are not conclusive proof of Indian citizenship while dismissing a habeas

The Calcutta High Court has held that voter identity cards, Aadhaar and PAN cards are not conclusive proof of Indian citizenship while dismissing a habeas corpus petition over the detention of a man whose name was deleted from the electoral rolls in West Bengal during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. The petition was filed by Suman Molla, who claimed that his nephew, Nasir, had been sent to a detention camp even though an appeal against the deletion of his name from the rolls was pending. The court said neither the petitioner nor the detainee had been able to establish Nasir's Indian citizenship and declined to interfere with the authorities' decision. Read Full Story The petitioner relied on Nasir's voter identity card, Aadhaar card, PAN card issued by the Income Tax Department and a bank passbook to argue that he was an Indian citizen and not a foreign national. But a division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Ajay Kumar Gupta held that voter identity cards, Aadhaar and PAN cards are not conclusive proof of Indian citizenship.

The bench said a voter identity card only shows that a person was enrolled in the electoral rolls, and noted that Nasir's name had been deleted during the 2026 SIR process. It also held that opening a bank account, by itself, is not proof of Indian citizenship. "Writ petitioner and the detainee are unable to discharge the burden of proof as mandated by the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025," the court observed. Holding that neither the petitioner nor the detainee had established Nasir's Indian citizenship, the court said it was not inclined to interfere with the authorities' decision and dismissed the habeas corpus petition. The bench noted that Nasir was detained on June 18, 2026, in line with a Ministry of Home Affairs circular dated May 2, 2025, and is now lodged in a detention centre. It said the circular gives a detainee 60 days to establish Indian citizenship and that, as of the date of the judgment on July 20, Nasir had failed to produce any document establishing his citizenship.

The court also allowed the petitioner's lawyer to speak to Nasir over the phone through a facility provided by the state. During the conversation, Nasir said his parents had died in India. The court noted, however, that although he made that claim, he was unable to identify where they had been buried. "We enquired of the parents of the detainee in order to direct DNA testing if the writ petitioner agrees, with the mortal remains of the parents in order to establish that the parents of the detainee were in India," the bench observed. "Since the detainee and the writ petitioner refused to identify the places where the mortal remains of the detainee's parents are lying, we draw an adverse inference as against the detainee with regard to his parents being Indian citizens," the court said. The bench also took a dim view of the petitioner and said Molla had not approached the court with clean hands.