Business
Government to continue with Aadhar scheme, SC told
New Delhi, Feb 13
The central government
Friday cleared all the doubts on the future of Aadhar scheme as it told
the Supreme Court that it would continue with the unique identification
project.
The government's stand was conveyed by the Solicitor
General Ranjit Kumar to a bench of Chief Justice H.L.Dattu and Justice
A.K.Sikri when it took up for hearing a PIL by Lt.Col. Mathew Thomas
(retd.) challenging the scheme's validity.
The court was told
that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) would continue
with its work and the government would not insist on Adhar card for
providing facilities to people as directed by the court earlier.
The
apex court by its Sep 23, 2013, order had said: "No person should
suffer for not getting the Adhaar card inspite of the fact that some
authority had issued a circular making it mandatory and when any person
applies to get the Aadhar Card voluntarily, it may be checked whether
that person is entitled for it under the law and it should not be given
to any illegal immigrant."
In the course of the last hearing of
the matter Feb 2, the court, taking note of media reports that the
government was having second thoughts on the question of mandatory
issuance of Aadhar cards, asked it to spell out its position.
As
the government cleared its stand, the court tagged the PIL by Lt.Col.
Thomas with nine other PILs being heard by the apex court since 2012. An
earlier PIL filed by Justice (Retd.) K.S. Puttaswamy has contended that
the entire scheme was unconstitutional as the biometric data collected
under it was an incursion and transgression of individual privacy.
Meanwhile,
the court Friday impleaded Reserve Bank of India and Maharashtra
government on the plea of senior counsel Gopal Subramaniam, appearing
for Thomas, who contended that despite its interim orders, the banks
were insisting on Aadhar number for opening bank accounts including KYC.
Maharashtra
government was impleaded after Subramanium told the court that the
state government was insisting on Aadhar card number to pay wages to its
employees. He told the court that even schools and other educational
institution in Maharashtra were insisting on Aadhar Card number to grant
facilities including scholarship.