March 31 no longer deadline to link aadhaar with bank mobile rules sc

March 31 no longer deadline to link aadhaar with bank mobile rules sc

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said Aadhaar would not be mandatory for services like banking, mobile phone connections and tatkal passport till a decision has been reached on the matter.

The apex court, which is hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the validity of 12-digit Unique Identification number, also extended the March 31 deadline for the mandatory linking.

SC, however, said Aadhaar will be necessary only for social schemes.

The five-judge Constitution bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, said the government cannot insist for mandatory Aadhaar.

On December 15, 2017, the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar was extended to March 31, 2018.

The petitions filed in the top court contend that making Aadhaar linking mandatory for welfare schemes and financial transactions, like getting a loan or filing taxes, violates the constitutional right to privacy.

The government had made it to link Aadhaar with welfare schemes insisting that it was necessary to weed out benami deals and black money.

The Centre was also planning to make it mandatory to link Aadhaar card with driving license and voter ID cards, among other things.

Aadhaar was launched in India in 2009 to streamline welfare payments and reduce wastage in public spending.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been keen to make Aadhaar mandatory for everything from filing income tax to the registration of mobile phone numbers and booking railway tickets.

Aadhaar is now mandatory for welfare, pension and employment schemes.

A group of petitioners have asked the Supreme Court to declare the government's insistence on Aadhaar disclosure as a violation of the right to privacy.

In August 2017, the apex court ruled that privacy is a fundamental right, but made it clear that the decision on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar would be taken separately.

The government says the Supreme Court, in that verdict, accepted that privacy is a fundamental right, but subject to reasonable restrictions.