SC curbs on Aadhaar to continue; pleas referred to constitution bench

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, October 7

The Supreme Court restrictions on Aadhaar will continue as a three-member Bench today refused to go into the pleas by the Centre and its agencies for allowing voluntary use of the identification card for implementing welfare schemes other than public distribution system (PDS) and cooking gas (LPG) subsidy.

The Bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar had passed an interim order on August 11, 2015 on a batch of PILs against Aadhaar, restraining the use of the card to PDS and LPG. Subsequently, the Centre and the regulators for banking, insurance, stock market and telecom approached the SC seeking relaxation for effective implementation of all the schemes for the poor and the middle class.

Aadhaar would also help deal with black money and terrorism, while its non-use had stalled the implementation of schemes such as jobs under MNREGA, zero-balance banking facility under the Jan Dhan Yojana and for payment of pension at doorstep, they pleaded.

After hearing their arguments the entire day yesterday, the Bench had reserved its order for today.

In its brief order today, the Bench said it would be better if the pleas for easing the curbs were decided by a Constitution Bench as the PILs had already been referred to such a Bench comprising at least five judges for deciding the larger question of alleged intrusion into people’s right to privacy under the Aadhaar scheme by forcing them to part with their fingerprints and iris images.

The apex court has already clarified that the government and its agencies should not deny any service, document or subsidy to anyone for non-possession of the Aadhaar card.

But the Centre, some states and statutory bodies such as Reserve Bank of India, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) and the pension fund regulator sought clarification from the SC that its restraint order did not prevent them from using Aadhaar on request from their clients who wanted to prevent pilferage and diversion of the benefits meant for them to others with similar names.

The Bench, which included Justice SA Bobde and Justice C Nagappan, however, said: “We are of the opinion that it would be better all the interlocutory applications (for easing the curbs) are also heard by the larger Bench.”

TRAI pleaded that Aadhaar was necessary to avoid issue of SIM cards to terrorists, while RBI contended that money laundering could be prevented by making use of the unique identification number on the card, issued to over 96 crore people so far.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had contended that the PIL petitioners could not deny poor people their right to part with their biometrics to avail of benefits under the welfare schemes.