ToxicsWatch, Journal of Earth, Science, Economy and Justice

In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.

              -Thomas Szasz in The Second Sin, 1974 

“I have a file on you.”

- MK Narayanan’s routine threat to his adversaries as National Security Adviser (NSA) quoted in Sanjay Baru's book 'The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh'

“One way to ensure that the unique identification (UID) number is used by all government and private agencies is by inserting it into the birth certificate of the infant. Since the birth certificate is the original identity document, it is likely that this number will then persist as the key identifier through the individual’s various life events, such as joining school, immunizations, voting etc.”
- A confidential document of UIDAI titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’, leaked by Wikileaks on 13 Nov 2009

Citing sources ANI new agency has reported that “Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has called for a discussion with the Home Secretary, Secretary Legislative Department and CEO UIDAI with the Commission, on the linking of EPIC & Aadhaar. The meeting is scheduled in the Election Commission on Tuesday, March 18, 2025”. A meeting with Secretary, Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is linked to MHA’s National Population Register (NPR) under Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 framed under Citizenship Act, 1955. It is linked to Government of India’s notification dated January 28, 2009 which constituted Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The fact is the terms of reference of the UIDAI mandated it "take necessary steps to ensure collation of National Population Register (NPR) with UID (as per approved strategy)", to "identify new partner/user agencies", to "issue necessary instructions to agencies that undertake creation of databases… (to) enable collation and correlation with UID and its partner databases" and UIDAI “shall own and operate the database".

The 35-page long final report of the “Extraordinary Commission for Clarifying Cases of Illegal Surveillance, Their Impact on the Electoral Process in the Republic of Poland, and Reforms of Special Services’ is extremely relevant for the unfolding illegitimate surveillance of electoral process in India by non-State actors, the donors of the ruling and opposition parties. Unlike the legislature of the Republic of India, the legislature of the Republic of Poland assigned the Extraordinary Commission the task of clarifying disclosed cases of illegal surveillance using, among other things, spyware software like Pegasus, and violations of the law during the use of operational control by special Services, evaluation of the impact of disclosed cases of illegal surveillance on the electoral process and development of legislative initiatives reforming the activities of surveillance agencies. The report was adopted by the legislature in September 2023.  

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, surveillance means ‘close observation, especially of a suspected person’. So far the Supreme Court has not had the occasion to examine the most glaring aspect of unlimited-cyber biometric surveillance of judges, soldiers, voters, farmers, legislators, editors, officials and their families, which entails close observation of all the present and future Indians indiscriminately as suspects. In fact each new born infant is a suspect. There is a file being created to track and profile him for ever. The 7-judge Constitution Bench of the Court has denied itself opportunity to pronounce the verdict on the constitutionality of biometric-electoral surveillance through UID/Aadhaar database. It is apparent that the Extraordinary Commission is more concerned about the unlimited surveillance than the Courts and legislatures in India.    

A confidential document of UIDAI titled 'Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India', leaked by Wikileaks on 13 November 2009 reveals that "One way to ensure that the unique identification (UID) number is used by all government and private agencies is by inserting it into the birth certificate of the infant. Since the birth certificate is the original identity document, it is likely that this number will then persist as the key identifier through the individual's various life events, such as joining school, immunizations, voting etc." Notably, there was never an occasion wherein there was an all-party meeting to seek the consent of all the political parties with regard to merger of UID/Aadhaar and NPR database with "electoral roll database".

Parliament is yet to discuss duplicate Voter ID Scam 

In this backdrop,  on March 10, 2025, Harivansh, Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha observed: "The notices of Shri Tiruchi Siva, Shri Sandosh Kumar P, Shri Vaiko, Shri P.P. Suneer and Shri P. Wilson have demanded discussion over the concerns regarding upcoming delimitation exercise to Southern States. The notices of Shri Saket Gokhale, Shrimati Sagarika Ghose, Shri Pramod Tiwari and Shri Ajay Makan have demanded discussion over the alleged lapse of the Election Commission in issuance of multiple duplicate EPIC across the States." EPIC refers to Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers.

Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha refused to allow discussion saying, "Members may recall the detailed rulings of Rule 267 imparted by the hon. Chairman, Rajya Sabha, on 8th December, 2022, and 19th December, 2022....The same have been reiterated by the hon. Chairman a number of times....Since these notices do not conform to the directives imparted by the hon. Chairman, the same are declined."

On March 10, 2015 Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition, Lok Sabha observed: "Questions are being raised across the country on the voter's list. In every opposition, questions are raised on the voter's list. The entire opposition is just saying that there should be a discussion on the voter's list."

During the Zero Hour discussion in the Lok Sabha, the Leader of Opposition pointed out that voter lists were being "twisted" across the country which undermines electoral democracy. When Om Birla, the Speaker of Lok Sabha asked him whether the government drew out the voter lists. The Leader of Opposition said that while the government may not be drawing the voter lists, questions are being raised about voter lists across the country.

On March 10, 2025, All India Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee raised the issue of large-scale duplication of EPIC voter identity card numbers across states during Zero Hour mention. He informed Lok Sabha, "The Election Commission all the time says that they are conducting elections in a transparent and fair manner. It is clear that there had been no transparent elections in the last few years. There had been no fair elections in the last few years, not at all. The Election Commission has not acted properly, and appropriate proceedings should be brought against the for that reason."

On March 10, 2025, All India Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Sougata Ray raised the issue of large-scale duplication of EPIC voter identity card numbers across states during Zero Hour mention. He informed Lok Sabha, "I demand that the total voter list should be thoroughly revised and the Election Commission should answer to the country why such mistakes have occurred in the voter list.…You know that the Election Commission is under the Ministry of Law and Parliamentary Affairs. He informed the Speaker, Lok Sabha that the Election Commission is under the government. It implies that it has a role in the preparation of the voter list.  

On March 11, 2025,  All India Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose from West Bengal raised serious questions the following questions that Election Commission of India cannot ignore: “How many duplicate Voter ID cards exist?, If there are changes in the electoral roll, why hasn’t a separate roll been published?, Why is there no action despite credible evidence of Aadhaar cards being cloned for fake voter registrations?” Notably, West Bengal Assembly is the only State legislature which has passed an unanimous resolution against Aadhaar Number.  

On March 11, 2025, All India Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Kirti Azad said, "In just three months, Maharashtra saw 40 lakh new voters added ahead of the elections. How is that even possible? EPIC numbers, meant to be unique, are now linked to multiple individuals. Even Aadhaar cards are being cloned! And now, @ECISVEEP wants 90 days to investigate. Does that mean they already know the scale of this fraud? How many fake cards exist? Who is behind this massive electoral malpractice?". The cloning of Aadhaar Number illustrates that Aaadhaar Number database project is a tried, tested and failed project but parties are yet to demand its abandonment.

Kirti Azad referring to the Press Note dated March 7, 2025 issued by the Election Commission of India entitled "Commission to address decades long issue of duplicate EPIC numbers within next 3 months" The note reads: "Electoral Roll updation takes place under DEO & ERO with continuous public and political parties participation India’s Electoral Rolls are the biggest database of electors across the globe with over 99 crore registered electors”…As regards the issue of duplicate EPIC numbers, the Commission has already taken cognizance of the matter. Irrespective of an EPIC number, an elector who is linked to the electoral roll of a particular polling station can cast his vote at that polling station only and nowhere else….The issue of allotment of duplicate numbers due to incorrect series across States/UTs could not have been detected as the States/UTs were independently managing the electoral roll databases. The Commission has now decided to resolve this long pending issue after detailed discussions within the technical teams and concerned CEOs in the next three months by ensuring a unique national EPIC number to the existing electors having a duplicate EPIC number and for future electors as well."

On March 11, 2025, All India Trinamool Congress tweeted:"The EPIC number duplication scam is a calculated assault on democracy. Issuing multiple voter IDs with the same number is a direct violation of electoral laws, yet  @ECISVEEP has turned a blind eye for years. Why was this massive fraud kept under wraps until Smt. @MamataOfficial exposed it? And how does ECI plan to fix it in three months when it failed to even acknowledge the issue for years? Our MPs confronted the Chief Election Commissioner today, demanding accountability. But when faced with hard questions, all they had were vague, evasive answers. The fight to protect free and fair elections is on, and we won’t back down!"

Claiming the EPIC number duplication SCAM to be the BIGGEST ELECTORAL FRAUD of our times, a 10-member delegation of All India Trinamool Congress MPs met Gyanesh Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner on March 11, 2025 submitted a letter demanding to know:”How many duplicate EPICs exist, and in which states?Will voters with duplicate EPICs be disenfranchised? How is Aadhaar cloning impacting voter registration and electoral rolls?" Aadhaar Number seems to be a Trojan horse somewhat like Pegasus which has been probed by the Polish legislature.  

On March 11, 2025, Election Commission of India issued a Press Note entitled "EC invites Party Presidents and senior leaders for interaction to further strengthen electoral processes within legal framework". Such verbal articulations do inspire even an iota of confidence among the parties and the citizens.

On March 12, 2025, All India Trinamool Congress Parliamentary Party Leader in Rajya Sabha, Derek O' Brien referred to "enough precedents" to demand an open discussion in the Rajay Sabha on the EPIC number duplication issue on the floor of Parliament next week under Rule 176 for 3 minutes if the it has not been allowed under Rule 267. He underlined that 7-8 parties are demanding it.

Earlier, on March 3, 2025, Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) of Indian National Congress issued a release on the subject of Election Commission's complicity in voter list manipulation. It reads: "There are some startling developments on the issue of voter list manipulation that have surfaced. The same voter id number is being used for several voters, both from the same constituency in the same state as well as from other states. This is utterly shocking. A unique voter id for every Indian voter is the fundamental requirement and premise of a clean voter list. Multiple voters having the same voter id number is  as  bizarre  as  multiple  vehicles  bearing  the  same  registration  number in  the  country. It is unheard of in any electoral democracy….The  Election  Commission’s  stoic  silence  has only  lent  credence  to  their complicity in voter list manipulation."

It also stated: "When confronted with proof of same voter id number used by multiple voters, the Election  Commission  initially responded  claiming  that  a  voter  id  number  may  be  the same across states, but it is unique to a particular state. Even that turned out to be a blatant lie as there are cases of the same voter id number used by several voters in the same state and in the same constituency. After this was pointed out, there has been pin drop silence.It is elementary knowledge that a person who can legally migrate to any state of the country must have a unique voter id number throughout the country. The Election Commission   cannot   feign   ignorance   or   incompetence   in   this   matter.   It   is   a   deliberate act of voter list manipulation to aid the ruling party and thwart the idea of free and fair elections.The  cover  is  now  blown."

Earlier on March 2, 2025, Election Commission of India issued a Press Note entitled "EC clarifies that duplication in EPIC number does not imply duplicate/fake voters." It reads:”Any case of duplicate EPIC number will be rectified by allotting a unique EPIC number."

Responding to the Press Note of the Election Commission of India, on March 7, 2025, EAGLE of Congress Party issued a release on the subject of duplicitous response by the Election Commission to the issue of duplicate voter- ID numbers. It reads:" The Election Commission of India {ECI} has issued a duplicitous response on the issue of same voter Ins being allotted to multiple voters. The ECI, in its response, hides behind its processes to offer a feeble explanation. Shockingly but not surprisingly, the ECI has been forced to admit that its voter lists are flawed and not trustworthy. The Election Commission, in a letter issued on September 18th 2008 to Chief Electoral Officers of all States, had said that `voter-IDs are unique'. However, the ECI today says, the issue of duplicate voter-IDs is a "decades long issue"….Was the ECI then all along misrepresenting to the voters of India that the 'voter-IDs were unique'?"

Ramifications of merger of Aadhaar Number with Voter ID Number Card

A Voter ID Card, also known as the Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) is a photo identity card that is issued by the Election Commission of India to all individuals who are eligible to vote. It is issued under Section 61(b), Representation of the People Act, 1951; Rule 28(2), Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. It serves as an identification proof when individuals cast their vote and prevents the impersonation of voters. Rule 28(1), Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 is relevant in this regard. The Voter ID Card contains the elector’s name, age and residence (among other particulars), and must have elector’s photograph affixed to it. It bears the signature of the Registration Officer i.e., the electoral registration officer of your constituency. This provision is under Rule 2(d), Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The voter’s card is prepared in duplicate, and one copy is retained with the registration officer while the other is delivered to the voter. This is required under Rule 28(3), Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Under Article 326 of the Constitution of India, one can enroll as a voter if one is an Indian citizen, has attained the age of 18 years and is ordinarily resident of the polling area of the constituency where one wants to be enrolled. Under Section 11A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, one can enroll as a voter if one is not disqualified to be enrolled as an elector. The disqualification may happen if one is convicted for an offence or one carries out corrupt practices.

The proponents of world's biggest citizen identification scheme aims to converge electoral photo identity card (EPIC) numbers of electoral database, the UID/Aadhaar number database called Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) and the National Population Register (NPR). In their myopia, political parties in particular and citizens in general have failed to fathom its ramifications for voting by electors in a democracy. A strange situation is emerging where citizens chose a government that was supposed to represent them but their government is undertaking the task of biometrically authenticating whether or not those it represents are indeed those who they claim to be.  

In a letter dated 7 June 2011, the Director General and Mission Director of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) wrote to Chief Election Commissioner saying, “The Election Commission of India (ECI) may also like to leverage Aadhaar infrastructure in cleaning/ updating their existing electoral data base. Aadhaar numbers issued by the UIDAI can also be included in the list of valid proof of identity (POI) and proof of address (POA) documents of the Election Commission during the polls for identity verification.”

The file notings by ECI on the UIDAI’s letter reads: “How can Aadhaar number used as proof of address”. The reply from ECI dated 17 June 2011 on the letter from UIDAI sought following information before taking any further action:
 • Whether UIDAI has the provision to update the address in the database, whenever there is a change in address, to use Aadhaar number as proof of address?

• Whether any process has been defined to use Aadhaar numbers on electoral roll database?

• Whether UIDAI can include EPIC numbers in Aadhaar database?

Responding to these question, in its letter dated 11 July 2011 UIDAI wrote, “Aadhaar has the provision to update the demographic or biometric information of the resident in CIDR from time to time to ensure that the CIDR data is up-to date and accurate all the time. The tool is currently under testing and should be widely available shortly.” The CIDR stands for Central Identities Data Repository of the Aadhaar numbers. Has the “tool” promised July 2011 available now? This reply is far from the truth. It further wrote, Aadhaar numbers can be seeded into EPIC and electoral roll databases to clean those databases and also to bring standardisation and uniformity in the Election Commission’s databases across the country. UIDAI does provide necessary technical and financial support under its information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure scheme for integration of Aadhaar number with database of concerned Ministries/ Departments to make them UID compliant. However, the process and schemes to use Aadhaar numbers for their applications are to be defined by the concerned Departments themselves.” 

The notification of 28 January 2009 that set up UIDAI, provides the terms of reference (TOR) for its work. There is no reference to the collation of UID number database with electoral database in the TOR. But the TOR does refer to “collation and correlation with UID and its partner databases.” If this reference to ‘partner database’ included electoral database, the UID/ Aadhaar enrolment form never revealed it and took Indian residents for a ride.  

UIDAI argued, “Aadhaar database is restricted to the name, date of birth, gender, address, facial image, ten fingerprints and iris of the resident. The data fields are based on the recommendation of the Demographic and Data field Verification Committee headed by N Vittal, former chief vigilance commissioner (CVC). Since Aadhaar database contains absolute minimum information of a resident necessary to establish identity, it is not possible to include EPIC numbers in the Aadhaar database. However, the ECI should seed Aadhaar numbers in the electoral database as clarified above.”

Prior to this KM Chandrasekhar, as cabinet secretary, Government of India (GoI) wrote a letter dated 25 April, 2011 addressed to VK Bhasin, secretary, legislative department stating, “Aadhaar can be treated as a valid Proof of Identity (PoI) and Proof of Address (PoA).”        

The Election Commission in its letter dated 4 March 2013 to UIDAI on the subject of “Seeding of Aadhaar number in Electoral Database” had written that “Commission feels that it would be better that EPIC no. is collected at the time of enrollment for Aadhaar  and put in the Aadhaar database…ECI has already issued instructions that Aadhaar cards can be used as alternative identity documents at polling station…It may be mentioned here that Ministry of Home Affairs has also agreed to print EPIC no. on smart card as issued by Registrar General of India…Under the circumstances, it is once again requested that EPIC no. may be made mandatory for enrollment in Aadhaar.”  In its letter dated 29 October 2012, the ECI had argued that “including EPIC no. as mandatory field in UIDAI database would enable better integration between UIDAI database and electoral database, which will make Aadhaar numbers more useful.”

In a letter dated 16 April 2012, RK Singh, the then secretary, ministry of home affairs  (MHA) wrote to Dr SY Quraishi, the then Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), with reference to latter’s letter dated 4 April 2012 “regarding inclusion of Electoral Photo Identity Card -EPIC number in the Aadhaar database.”

The secretary, MHA wrote, “The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India is in the process of creating the National Population Register (NPR) in the country. The NPR, when completed will be a register of all usual residents of the country, which would have the Aadhaar number besides the demographic and biometric data. The Government is also considering a proposal to issue Resident Identity (smart) Cards to all usual residents above the age of 18 years. The scheme is already making good progress and is likely to be completed in the next two years.”

At that time, the secretary, MHA also wrote, “As a part of the process of creating the NPR, the EPIC number is also being collected. This would enable mapping of the Aadhaar number to the EPIC number right from the beginning…Once the mapping is completed, there could be a lot of synergy between the EPIC and NPR databases.” He pointed out that “while the registration under the NPR is mandatory under the provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955, the production of EPIC Card during the NPR enrolment and capturing the EPIC number is being done on a voluntary basis from the residents. There are, therefore, gaps in the collection of the numbers. The gap can easily be bridged as the Authorities notified for the creation of the NPR are the same as those notified under the Electoral Law and if necessary instructions are issued by the Election Commission, they could easily ensure a complete coverage.”   

It is intriguing as to how Election Commission has failed to comprehend the adverse consequences of such convergence. There is nothing in public domain to suggest that implications of such merger have been examined.    

The then secretary, MHA informed the CEC that there is mutual agreement between the MHA’s RGI and ECI that “there is a considerable potential to synchronise the two databases and set up a unified platform for future updating of the same and sought CEC’s advice to take it forward. Has it been realized that synchronization of the two databases is happening as per the design of Wipro’s document and is beyond the mandate given to UIDAI and RGI?

It may recalled that one of the earliest documents that refer UIDAI is a 14-page long document titled ‘Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents’ prepared by Wipro Ltd for the Planning Commission envisaged the close linkage that the UIDAI’s Aadhaar would have with the electoral database. The use of electoral database mentioned in Wipro’s document remains on the agenda of the proponents of Aadhaar.

A former special secretary of the R&AW and author of “Escape to Nowhere: Story of an Espionage Agent”, Amar Bhushan says, “It’s the charter of every intelligence organisation to infiltrate and subvert other intelligence agencies.” It has now been revealed that Major Rabinder Singh could not be caught red handed because he had been transmitting the information and documents using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) meant for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over IPl networks through his laptops, which had imprints of 23,100 files. Thus, a database of 23, 100 files of R&AW has been transferred to US agencies without putting any remedial mechanism in place. Are our intelligence agencies really so naïve that they did not know that data can be transferred with VoIP? Can these agencies be trusted with the data of Indians? Aren’t all the data collected by UIDAI beinhg transmitted to foreign countries through companies like L1 Identity Solutions, Accenture and Mongo DB?

The Wikileaked document titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’ that declared itself to be a ‘Confidential- property of UIDAI’ states, “The Unique ID or UID will be a numeric that is unique across all 1.2 billion residents in India. The UID number will not contain intelligence. In older identity systems, it was customary to load the ID number with information related to the date of birth, as well as the location of the person. However, this makes the number susceptible to fraud and theft, and migration of the resident quickly makes location details out of date. The UID will be a random number.”

While the Election Commission, cabinet secretary, home secretary and UIDAI have accepted UID/Aadhaar as “proof of address”, this Wikileaked document reveals that making it a proof of location was not part of its conceptual design. It is a puzzle as how agencies after agencies started accepting biometric Aadhaar as proof of address?      

Like Indian NSA’s threat to his adversaries about having a file on them, having a UID/Aadhaar number automatically creates a file of the Indian residents in question. Even infants are not spared in this scheme of things. 

The confidential document reveals that from day one the Prime Minister wanted to create a file on each of “1.2 billion residents”, the division of work between MHA’s NPR and UIDAI was merely an attention diversion tactics to outwit political scrutiny. The merger of the electoral database with UID/number debunks UIDAI’s claim that UID number “will not contain intelligence” and “the location of the person.”

From these disclosures, it appears that PMO has adopted an adversarial role vis-à-vis Indians and acting beyond their legal mandate to pander to the interests of the commercial czars, non-state actors and foreign intelligence companies. 

But the opposition parties are yet to promise repeal of Aadhaar Act, a mini-Constitution emulating the example of 44^th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1978 because in the name of biometric identification, civil death of citizens is being normalised and naturalised as if Article 21 of the Constitution has been abrogated.  There is a compelling logic for the parties to resist bulldozing the database project by compelling various government departments and States including Election Commission to comply with the dictates from the global ID-cartel. The opposition parties must protect the Prime Minister who takes “a daily briefing from chiefs of both the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) who were told to report to the National Security Advisor (NSA)” who has a file on his friends and adversaries but he and his officials do not seem to realize that National Security Agency of US and its Five Eyes Alliance have a file on them too. The intriguing eagerness to merge electoral photo identity card -EPIC numbers and electoral database, with the Aadhaar biometric database merits attention of all Indians because it appears that the Prime Minister, his colleagues and senior officials have accepted the fait accompli of all the Indians including them being subjected to surveillance by imperial powers and their collaborators. Hasn’t officialdom and political class been blind to subversion of national interest through transfer of citizen’s databases to foreign state and non-state actors?  

It is apparent that the merger of Voter-ID Number and Aadhaar Number through amendment in Aadhaar Act is an exercise in merger of electoral database and Aadhaar database which is all set to enable total control of the extinguish political and civil rights of present and future generations by rewriting of the political geography of the country with despotic consequences. Is it the case that the merger of Aadhaar database with all existing databases is a scam which is bigger than all the scams of independent India?

Dr Gopal Krishna

(The author is an Advocate and a researcher of philosophy and law. His current work is focused on the philosophy of digital totalitarianism and the monetisation of nature. He has appeared before the Supreme Court's Committees, Parliamentary Committees of Europe, Germany and India and UN agencies on the subject of national and international legislation. He is the co-founder of the East India Research Council (EIRC). He is the convener of the Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) which has been campaigning for freedom from UID/Aadhaar/NPR and DNA profiling through criminal identification procedures since 2010. He had appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that questioned and trashed the biometric identification of Indians through UID/Aadhaar Number. He is an ex-Fellow, Berlin-based International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter Strategies (IRGAC). He is also the editor of www.toxicswatch.org.)

Had General Bipin Rawat, India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the Indian Armed Forces from January 2020 until his death in a mysterious helicopter crash on December 8, 2021 been alive, he would have been 67 years old. He was killed along with Madhulika, his wife and members of his staff were amongst 10 passengers and 4 crew members aboard an Indian Air Force Mil Mi-17 V 5 helicopter flight en route from the Sulur Air Force Base to the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu where General Rawat was to deliver a lecture. At around 12:10 p.m. local time, the aircraft crashed near a residential colony of private tea estate employees on the outskirts of the hamlet of Nanjappachatiram, Bandishola panchayat, in the Katteri-Nanchappanchathram area of Coonoor taluk, Nilgiris. The crash site was 10 kilometres from the flight's intended destination. 

The death of General Rawat, his wife and 11 others was confirmed by the Indian Air Force (IAF). On December 10, 2021, IAF tweeted saying, "IAF has constituted a tri-service Court of Inquiry to investigate the cause of the tragic helicopter accident on 08 Dec 21. The inquiry would be completed expeditiously & facts brought out. Till then, to respect the dignity of the deceased, uninformed speculation may be avoided." The tri-services inquiry is headed by Manvendra Singh, the IAF’s Air Officer Training Command Air Marshal, one of its most experienced helicopter pilots with over 6,600 hours of flying on various types. A statement in  this regard was made by Rajnath Singh, the defence minister in both houses of parliament on December 9, 2021. The Opposition suspended its protests in Parliament for one day as a tribute to those who lost their lives in the crash. General Rawat's liaison officer, Group Captain Varun Singh initially survived the incident, but died on December 15, 2021.

On December 19, 2021, Indian Defence News published a news report entitled "IAF Chief Assures 'Very Very Fair' Inquiry Into CDS Chopper Crash Case". The reports reads: "Assuring that the court of inquiry into the CDS chopper crash case would be a "very very fair process", Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhari on Saturday said the probe team's mandate is to investigate every single angle and aspect of the accident and come out with findings and recommendations." He was speaking after the Air Force Combined Graduation Parade at the academy in Dundigal, Tamil Nadu. He said,"Let me assure you that it is a very very fair process, this entire Court of Inquiry... I would not like to pre-empt any findings of the court of inquiry as it is a thorough process. It is a mandate to investigate every single angle and look into every single aspect of what could have gone wrong and come out with suitable recommendations and findings.

The 121-page long report of the Radha Mohan Singh headed 31-member Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence dated December 17, 2024 provided details about 34 IAF Aircraft accidents in recent years. During 2017-18, there were 8 accidents, during 2018-19, there were 11 accidents, during 2019-20, there were 3 accidents, during 2020-21, there were 3 accidents and during 2021-22, there were 9 accidents. The accidents happened due to Foreign object Damage, Technical Defect, Human Error (Servicing), Human Error (Aircrew) and Bird Strike. The accident dated October 21, 2021 with reference to Mirage aircraft was reported to be under investigation. The accident dated June 23, 2021 with reference to Kiran aircraft was due to Foreign object Damage. The Mi-17 aircraft accident dated on December 8, 2021 which killed 14 persons including General Rawat, his wife, Brigadier L.S. Lidder, Lt. Col. Harjinder Singh and Group Captain Varun Singh has been attributed to the reason of Human Error (Aircrew). Strangely, the parliament report did not mention the name of General Rawat despite the fact that his accident was one of the 34 accidents which were subjected to inquiries. 

Significantly, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) comprising of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Minister of Defence, Amit Shah, Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Cooperation, Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Finance and Minister of Corporate Affairs and Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs met on the evening of the disaster to decide on a further course of action. Reacting to the monumental loss due to the horrific accident, on December 10, 2021, Shobhaa De, the author wrote, "Yes, there will be an IAF inquiry. It will be deemed “confidential”, “sensitive” and soon the public will forget the ghastly incident which robbed us of a fine military leader, whose unconventional views did not sit well with those interested in maintaining the status quo. Without doubt, there is egg on our face, no matter what explanations are put forward to deconstruct the accident. Foreign agencies are already in overdrive, piecing together the missing links of the crash and coming up with conspiracy theories. This is dangerous and counter-productive in an environment which is hyper-sensitive and charged. Our security can’t be compromised, no matter how uncomfortable the facts may be."

IAF gave a detailed presentation tri-services inquiry report to Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the Mi-17 chopper crash on 8 December that led to the death of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 12 other military personnel, informed sources on January 5, 2022. The tri-services probe report has given its findings on reasons behind the crash and made recommendations for the future chopper operations for flying VIPs. IAF's Chief Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari, Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar and inquiry committee chief Air Marshal Manvendra Singh were there to present the report to the defence minister.

According to a Ministry of Defence (MoD) press statement entitled "PRELIMINARY FINDINGS OF COI: HELICOPTER ACCIDENT ON 08 DEC 2021" issued by Press Information Bureau on January 14, 2022 reads: "The Tri-Services Court of Inquiry into the Mi-17 V5 accident on 08 Dec 21 has submitted its preliminary findings. The inquiry team analysed the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder besides questioning all available witnesses to determine the most probable cause of the accident. The Court of Inquiry has ruled out mechanical failure, sabotage or negligence as a cause of the accident. The accident was a result of entry into clouds due to unexpected change in weather conditions in the valley. This led to spatial disorientation of the pilot resulting in Controlled Flight into Terrain. Based on its findings, the Court of Inquiry has made certain recommendations which are being reviewed." Controlled Flight into Terrain is defined as an unintentional collision with terrain-the ground, a mountain, a body of water, or an obstacle-while an aircraft is under positive control. The findings of the final report of the Tri-Services Court of Inquiry does not appear to be in public domain.

Notably, the Russian-built Mil Mi-17 medium-lift helicopter was one of the first batch of 80 of its type built for the IAF under the terms of a 2008 contract. It was delivered to the IAF in 2011 and inducted into service in 2012. The helicopter had flown over 26 hours without incident since its most recent servicing. Its crew included Wing Commander Prithvi Singh Chauhan, the commanding officer of 109 Helicopter Unit, was the pilot in command, with co-pilot Squadron Leader Kuldeep Singh and two junior warrant officers comprising the rest of the crew.

Tamil Nadu police had kept the probe pending because it waited for a conclusive report about what led to the crash and the weather clearance report issued on December 8, 2021, and the data from the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder. In November 2023, it announced that it has dropped further action with regard to the FIR registered on December 9, 2021 under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). ADSP Muthumanikam was appointed as the investigation officer. Director General of Police, C Sylendra Babu presided over a meeting here on the mishap and probe related to it. Senior police and forensic officials participated in the high level meeting and had examined some 26 witnesses. It was reported that two minor accidents were reported when the bodies of the crash victims were being transported to Coimbatore, from where they would be flown to New Delhi. In one of the incidents in Karamadai, on the outskirts of Coimbatore, an ambulance carrying the body of one of the deceased hit another moving in the front. As a result, the vehicle got stuck and the mortal remains were shifted to another ambulance to be taken to the Sulur Air base in the city for the onward journey to the national capital. A police vehicle, escorting the ambulances carrying the bodies, was involved in an accident near Barliar. A few policemen sustained minor injuries.

Coincidentally, on July 18, 2016, Anil Madhav Dave, Union Environment Minister had informed the Rajya Sabha in his written reply about "a type of weapon called High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme" (HAARP), which strikes the upper atmosphere with a focussed and steerable electromagnetic beam”. He was replying to a question posed by Sukhendu Sekhar Roy Roy, the MP from West Bengal who had asked whether Government is aware of High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme (HAARP)". The final report of the Court of Inquiry may throw light on the possibility of use of HAARP like weapons to create unpredictable weather or cloud or a focused and steerable electromagnetic beam the upper atmosphere because it has mandate to investigate every single angle and every single aspect of what could have gone wrong. The lessons from the accidental killing of General Bipin Rawat  must be learnt in right earnest.