Kolkata: Aadhaar and PAN cards are not conclusive proof of Indian citizenship, the Calcutta High Court has ruled while dismissing a habeas corpus petition challenging the detention of a man whose name was removed from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Review (SIR) conducted by the Election Commission of Indian in West Bengal this year.
The Court was hearing a petition by Suman Molla, who claimed that his nephew, Nasir, had been lodged in a detention centre after his name was deleted from the electoral rolls, despite an appeal against the deletion being pending.
To support his claim that Nasir was an Indian citizen, the petitioner relied on his Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC), Aadhaar card, PAN card and a bank passbook.
The division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta held that none of these documents, by themselves, constitute conclusive proof of Indian citizenship, as reported by News18.
A voter identity card merely establishes that a person was enrolled in the electoral rolls, the Court observed. Since Nasir’s name had already been deleted during the 2026 SIR process, the card could not be treated as proof of citizenship.
Merely opening and operating a bank account is also not evidence of Indian citizenship, the bench further held.
“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.
It declined to interfere with the authorities’ decision and dismissed the habeas corpus petition after finding that neither the petitioner nor the detainee had been able to establish Nasir’s Indian citizenship.
According to the Court, Nasir was detained on June 18, 2026, under a Ministry of Home Affairs circular dated May 2, 2025, and is currently lodged in a detention centre.
The MHA circular gives a detainee 60 days to establish Indian citizenship, the Court noted. However, by the date of the judgment, Nasir had failed to produce any document proving his citizenship.
The Court permitted the petitioner’s advocate to speak with Nasir over the phone through a facility provided by the state during the proceedings. During the conversation, Nasir claimed that his parents had died in India.
Although Nasir made this claim, he was unable to identify where his parents had been buried, the Court noted.
“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 added.
There were also inconsistencies in the petitioner’s statements, the bench noted. Molla had not approached the court with clean hands, it observed, pointing out that while he described himself as Nasir’s cousin in a written complaint to the police, he claimed to be the detainee’s uncle in the writ petition.
In the petition it has been mentioned that Molla had brought up Nasir after the death of the latter’s father in 1980. The court, however, noted that the petitioner is 38 years old while the detainee is 46 years old, rejecting the claim that he had raised Nasir as his uncle.
The counsel for the Centre submitted that a detention order issued against Nasir on June 18, 2026, recorded that an inquiry, interrogation and verification into his citizenship had concluded that he was a Bangladeshi national.
