Aadhaar is not compulsory, SC makes it clear comments powered by Disqus Home > India > Report 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. Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..