South Carolina allows Aadhar for welfare schemes

The Centre had landed in a tight spot by strenuously arguing that right to privacy was not a fundamental right when petitioners had challenged the biometric data – fingerprints and iris image – in the Aadhaar card as gross violation of privacy as storage of citizens’ personal data was not fully secured.

Last week, the Aadhaar case was moved to a bigger Constitutional Bench at a time when the government was considering Aadhaar-linking of all social schemes.

“If this bench is sitting only for hearing the modification then the court is re-visiting the order and its akin to review or curative”, he said.

While the Supreme Court is still debating the need for Aadhar Cards for various services and has not made it compulsory, a few schools in the IT city have asked even Class I students to produce Aadhar card as a prerequisite to write their unit tests.

According to the UIDAI: “Using the e-KYC service, the residents can authorise UIDAI to release their KYC data to a service provider, either in person (through biometric authentication), or online (through OTP authentication). No court like ours would give the government a free run to violate privacy of citizens”, Divan said.

He had also explained the role of bank correspondents who will help the beneficiaries to realise welfare scheme benefits and also help them in opening bank accounts at the doorsteps. He said the system of Aadhaar card is full proof and there is no human element involved in authentication of data.

“Why not Jan Dhan Yojna?” The bench then said that it can’t be done at present.

Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Centre to link Aadhar to MNREGA, pension scheme, PF and Jandhan scheme.

A five-judge Supreme Court bench on Thursday allowed the use of the Aadhaar card, a development that comes as a huge relief for the government which had petitioned the apex court to extend its ambit. Over Rs 7,000 crores had been spent for issuance of Aadhaar card.

The UIDAI, established by the UPA-2 in 2009, issues Aadhaar cards to the citizens, who want to use the government welfare schemes.

Also, the apex court had earlier directed that no information about an individual that the Unique Identification Authority of India obtains while issuing an Aadhaar card can be used for any other goal except, with court permission, for criminal investigation.

The bench, also comprising Justices M Y Eqbal, C Nagappan, Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy, may continue hearing the matter tomorrow also as the advancing of arguments on pleas of the Centre, RBI, SEBI, IRDA, TRAI, the Pension Fund Regulatory Authority and states like Gujarat and Jharkhand for modification of the August 11 order remained inconclusive.