SC order today, govt says can defer deadline for all
THE CENTRE HAS TOLD THE TOP COURT IT IS WILLING TO EXTEND THE DEADLINE FOR LINKING MOBILE PHONES FROM FEB 6 TO MARCH 31
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will pronounce on Friday its order on several petitions seeking an interim stay on government directives making Aadhaar mandatory for various schemes and services.
A five-judge bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra concluded the hearing on Thursday during which attorney general KK Venugopal said the government has extended the deadline for linking the 12-digit unique identity number to various servicesfromDecember31toMarch 31, 2018.
On giving an extension to link mobile phones to Aadhaar, Venugopal said the government was willing to extend the deadline from February 6, 2018 subject to the court’s order.
The Centre has referred to an earlier SC verdict to make Aadhaar mandatory for mobile phones, saying the top court had directed it to verify all mobile connections through Aadhaar.
The government is pushing for wide use of Aadhaar which it says is necessary to plug leakages and corruption in various welfare schemes and for national security.
Critics and activists say the biometric identify number is an infringement of privacy as the ID card links enough data to create a full profile of a person’s spending habits, their friends, property they own and a trove of other information.
There have also been concerns over data breaches.
Venugopal, however, asked the court to let Aadhaar remain mandatory for opening new bank accounts as it was meant to authenticate new account holders. In his brief submission, he countered the charges levelled by the petitioners, saying it was done for identification purposes.
The bench told Venugopal it will deal with his plea related to bank accounts in its interim order as it indicated to extend the deadline for mobile phone linkages. The court fixed January 10 to start the final hearing on petitions contesting the validity of the Aadhaar law. Advocates representing those opposing Aadhaar cited earlier SC orders to assert that court had restrained making Aadhaar mandatory.