Aadhaar card: SC agrees to hear contempt plea against Centre

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, September 9

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear petitions seeking contempt proceedings against various departments of the Centre and states for insisting on production of Aadhaar card by people seeking documents, services and subsidy.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur told advocate Aishwarya Bhati that the plea would be listed soon. Seeking an early hearing of the plea by one of the PIL petitioners who was successful in obtaining interim orders from the Supreme Court that no authority could make Aadhaar mandatory, Bhati said several departments were flagrantly violating the directives.

Among those named as contemnors in the petition were the Ministries of Human Resource Development (HRD) for forcing students to produce Aadhaar for getting scholarships and the Karnataka government for denial of subsidised foodgrains to the poor under the Public Distribution Scheme unless people had the card issued by the Unique Identification Authority.

The Supreme Court has allowed some of the institutions like banks, civil supplies departments and petroleum companies to make use of Aadhaar on a voluntary basis to prevention misuse of subsidies and irregularities in payment of wages under the employment guarantee scheme.