Supreme Court rules Aadhaar not mandatory for bank accounts, mobile numbers |
Stating that the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, was constitutionally valid, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down some of its provisions by a 4:1 majority. The apex court said a person`s rights could not be denied on the ground of lack of the unique ID. While the majority judgment, written by Justice AK Sikri in concurrence with CJI Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar, upheld seeding of PAN with Aadhaar, it set aside linking Aadhaar to bank accounts and mobile phone numbers. In his concurring decision, Justice Bhushan said the Central government had given sufficient reasons to uphold Section 7 of Aadhaar Act, which deals with grant of subsidies and welfare benefits. However, in a dissenting judgment, Justice Chandrachud said the Aadhaar Act was liable to be struck down as being violative of Article 110. “Rajya Sabha should not have been bypassed,” he said, referring to the government passing the Aadhaar bill as a Money Bill in the Lok Sabha, where it has an absolute majority. He also asked telecom operators to delete all data they had collected from users.
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