Deadline To Link Aadhaar To Government Schemes May Be Extended To March 31

The Centre informed the Supreme Court today that it is willing to extend the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to avail benefits of various government schemes to March 31 next year. This will, however, apply only to those who do not have an Aadhaar card yet.

This was communicated to the top court by Attorney General for India KK Venugopal who mentioned the matter before Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Misra and sought to defer hearing on the challenge to the validity of the Aadhaar scheme. The court was slated to hear the matter in the first week of November.

However, petitioners objected to this request with Senior Advocate Shyam Divan asking for the case to be heard at the earliest. ‘’There are people who have an Aadhaar card but do not want to link it with their bank account. The manner in which Aadhaar is being implemented is unconstitutional’’ said Divan.

The Centre’s statement before the court was in response to a slew of petitions filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Constitutional validity of the decision to make linking of mobile numbers and bank accounts as well as other government schemes with Aadhaar a must.

Petitioners also sought that the government’s deadline extension to March 31 include those who have an Aadhaar card but do not want to link it with various schemes. To this, the Attorney General said he will get back with instructions from Centre on Monday.

A nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court had in August ruled unanimously that the right to privacy is a fundamental right. After that, a five-judge bench was supposed to hear the batch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Aadhaar scheme as well as petitions challenging the linkage of Aadhaar to various schemes in the first week of November.