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Supreme Court interim order on Aadhaar pleas today

The five-Judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, which heard the pleas today, also said the final hearing on the petitions challenging the Constitutionality of the Aadhaar would commence from January 17 next year.

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The Supreme Court will deliver its interim order today on pleas seeking a stay on the government’s decision for mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various welfare schemes. Incidentally, the Centre has extended the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to various accounts and welfare scheme numbers to March 31 next year. 

The five-Judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, which heard the pleas today, also said the final hearing on the petitions challenging the Constitutionality of the Aadhaar would commence from January 17 next year. 

Earlier, during hearing today, Attorney General KK Venugopal, representing the Centre, said the government was willing to extend the deadline up to March 31 next year for mandatory linking of the national biometric identifier to avail the benefit of various services and welfare measures.  Venugopal, however, sought the court’s go-ahead to ensure that Aadhaar is mandatory for opening of new bank accounts.

At least six senior advocates led by Shyam Divan gave short submissions to put their point across challenging the constitutional validity of the unique identification scheme, though the top court stuck to the limited issue of linking Aadhaar to bank accounts, postponing the larger issue to January 17, when the matter will be heard next. 

The government had yesterday issued a notification to extend till March 31 the deadline for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number (PAN) for bank accounts and certain financial transactions. However, there is still no word on extending the February 6, 2018 deadline for linking mobile SIM cards with Aadhaar. 

Referring to this, the AG told the bench that deadline for linking of Aadhaar numbers with mobile numbers was February 6 next year and had been fixed in pursuance of the court’s direction. He said the bench could consider extending this deadline also.

Petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as “illegal and unconstitutional”.

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