Today Apex court said it wasn’t mandatory to link Aadhaar to bank accounts or mobile numbers, but that that the identification was compulsory for the filing of I-T returns and for the allotment of Permanent Account Numbers (PAN).
It said no child can be denied benefits of any schemes if he or she can’t produce an Aadhaar number.
As regards enrolment of children, it was held that they should be given an option to exit the scheme on attaining majority.School admissions cannot be based on Aadhaar. CBSE cannot insist on Aadhaar for examinations.
The CBSE, the NEET, and the UGC can’t make Aadhaar mandatory, and the scheme isn’t compulsory for school admissions, the court said.
The court also directed the government not to to give illegal immigrants Aadhaar.
Top court also stuck down Sections 33(2),47 & 57 Of Aadhaar Act . The judgment of Justice Sikri in the Aadhaar case has struck down Sections 33(2) and 57 of the Aadhaar(Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act 2016.
The judgment authored by Justice A K Sikri, has concurrence of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar.
Section 33(2) permits disclosure of information under Aaadhar act, including identity and authentication information, made in the interest of national security in pursuance of a direction of an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India specially authorised in this behalf by an order of the Central Government.
The judgment of Justice Sikri has read down Section 33(1) of the Act, which enables disclosure of aadhaar information on the orders of District Judge, to state that the owner of information should be given opportunity of hearing before issuing such orders.
The judgment has struck down Section 47 of the Act, which stated that criminal complaints for data breach can be filed only by UIDAI. The exclusion of individuals from filing complaints was held to be arbitrary.
Section 57 of the Act permits private entities to use Aadhaar information to authenticate identity of the person.
The judgment however endorsed the Aadhaar project and held that enrolment was valid. It was also held that profiling was not possible and there were inbuilt safeguards against it.
The judgment also stated that there was no impropriety in Aadhaar Act being introduced as a money bill. Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act was also upheld.
Earlier A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had on May 10 reserved the verdict on the matter after a marathon hearing that went on for 38 days, spanning four-and-half months.
Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identity number, based on demographic and biometric data considered a proof of residence and proof of citizenship.
The data is collected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a statutory authority established in January 2009. It is world’s largest biometric ID system.
Centre BJP government after coming to power in 2014 has made aggressive expansion of Aadhaar numbers and made mandatory to enjoy host of services, including mobile sim cards, bank accounts, the Employee Provident Fund, and a large number of welfare schemes that had been questioned by more than a dozen petitioners resulted in above mentioned verdict by Apex Court
