Deadline to link Aadhaar with government schemes extended: Centre to SC

The government has offered to extend the deadline for linking bank accounts, mobile phone numbers, and Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) with Aadhaar by three months till March 31, 2018 (from the current December 31, 2017 deadline) for those people who do not yet have the 12-digit biometric number. However, it stopped short of assuring that it will not take coercive steps against Aadhaar holders who fail to do so.

Attorney General (AG) K K Venugopal on Wednesday told a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra that he would get back to the court with a firm answer on whether the government would drop for now its insistence on seeding Aadhaar to various government schemes by Monday next week. Venugopal had initially said that the government was open to extending the deadline only for those who do not have the unique identity number and that those who have it will have to mandatorily link it. The AG said a high-level committee headed by former top court judge B N Srikrishna was examining the issue of data protection and would suggest amendments required to Aadhaar and information technology laws to bring it in line with right to privacy.

Senior advocates Shyam Divan, Arvind Datar and Anand Grover, appearing for those opposed to Aadhaar, rejected the AG’s proposal. Instead, they sought an assurance that the government would not take any coercive steps against those who did not link their Aadhaar to various schemes and services till the court ruled on the constitutional validity of the unique identity programme.

They called for the court to decide the case at the earliest.

Divan, who has spearheaded the challenge to the unique identity programme, insisted on an urgent hearing as it involved civil liberties of citizens. “School children are being asked to produce Aadhaar for hall tickets (for exams),” heclaimed.