The Chief Justice of India JS Khehar's decision came after senior Advocate Shyam Divan mentioned the matter before the bench on Wednesday morning.
The Supreme Court has agreed to set up a five-judge constitution bench to decide privacy issues arising out of the Aadhaar Act. The Constitution Bench will assemble next week for two days to decide on whether the matter needs to be referred to a larger bench.
The Chief Justice of India JS Khehar's decision came after senior Advocate Shyam Divan mentioned the matter before the bench on Wednesday morning. Divan's request — supported by Attorney General KK Venugopal is in pursuance to a 2015 order where a five-judge bench led by then Chief Justice of India HL Dattu had directed all matters pertaining to the privacy issue in the Aadhaar matter to a Constitution bench.
Divan's recent request came after an observation made by Justice Jasti Chelameswar who said that a Constitution Bench should dispose of all matters arising out of the Aadhaar issue once and for all.
Justice Chelameswar's observation was made last week when the Aadhaar issue came up for hearing in front of the full bench in pursuance of a June 27 order delivered by a vacation bench. Divan, representing the petitioners and Venugopal agreed with the court's suggestion and agreed to jointly mention the matter before the Chief Justice of India next week.
"My opinion is that once a matter has been referred to a Constitution Bench, all the issues arising out of it should be with the bench. I can only say that a matter can be disposed of by a nine-judge bench. You two can decide the possibility of nine judges hearing it," said Justice Chelameswar heading the three-judge bench also comprising of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Navin Sinha.
During the brief hearing, Divan recalled the orders delivered starting from a 2015 October order which referred the Aadhaar matter to a Constitution bench. During his submissions, Divan said the slew of notifications released by the Centre making Aadhar mandatory — a clear departure from the statute under which it is voluntary, was akin to making India a concentration camp.
The AG, however, took exception to this submission and observed that if Divan continued along the lines of this argument he was not keen to pursue the matter forward. "How can he (Divan) say India is like a concentration camp?," Venugopal had observed.
Various petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhar are pending before the apex court. However, it has been almost two years and the apex court has not yet constituted a bench to hear the matter despite several appeals.
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