SC bench reserves Aadhaar judgment

NEW DELHI: Marathon hearings in the Aadhaar case, which went on for 38 days spread across four months, ended on Thursday with the Supreme Court reserving its verdict on petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the unique identification project.

A five-judge Constitution bench, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, justice AK Sikri, justice AM Khanwilkar, justice DY Chandrachud, and justice Ashok Bhushan heard over 30 petitions against the Aadhaar Act and the Centre’s defence of the controversial law.

Besides the law itself, the petitions challenged government orders that made it compulsory for linking of bank accounts, mobile phone numbers, permanent account numbers and filing of income taxes to the Aadhaar unique ID number.

The main thrust of the case brought by petitioners was that Aadhaar encroached on the privacy of citizens because it entailed collection of fingerprints, iris scans and other details of citizens with/without their consent.

At the end of the hearings on Thursday, Attorney General KK Venugopal said it was the longest case in the SC’s history, behind only the Kesavanand Bharti case dating back to the 1970s, which dealt with powers of the executive to amend the Constitution.

Shyam Diwan, appearing for petitioner Kalyani Menon, termed Aadhaar “an electronic leash” and argued the government could destroy an individual by “switching off” the 12-digit identification number.

BESIDES LAW ITSELF, PETITIONS CHALLENGE GOVERNMENT ORDERS THAT HAVE MADE IT COMPULSORY FOR LINKING WITH FACILITIES