Aadhaar is not compulsory, SC makes it clear
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Aadhaar is not compulsory, SC makes it clear
Tuesday, Sep 24, 2013, 9:46 IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA
Kanu Sarda
Mayank Aggarwal
Dealing a body blow to the UPA-II's ambitious Unique Identification Authority
of India (UIDAI) project, the Supreme Court on Monday said Aadhaar cards are
not mandatory for availing government services such as domestic cooking gas,
food subsidy, marriage certificates, salary reimbursements and other services.
The SC order comes after the parliamentary standing committee on finance
rejected the National Identification Authority of India Bill that would have
given legal backing to the Aadhaar project. The government has been under
attack for going ahead with the project without any statutory backing.
UIDAI, headed by the former Infosys chief, Nandan Nilekani, has so far issued
40.29 crore Aadhaar cards. The government was targeting a number of 60 crore
cards by 2014.
The home ministry had also raised concerns on Aadhaar's biometric data
collection and verification methods stating that they do not meet security
criteria. Besides, there has been a turf war with the Home Ministry's National
Population Register which too has been documenting photographs, fingerprints
and iris scan of all citizens.
The court's directions came after a former judge of the Karnataka High Court,
KS Puttaswamy, filed a PIL alleging that the government was bypassing
parliament by going ahead with the distribution of UID numbers and cards.
The Supreme Court told the Centre not to make the Unique Identification Card
mandatory for availing government schemes.
The court said that the identification card could not be mandatory for states
to provide services either.
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