By: Express News Service | New Delhi | Posted: February 14, 2015 1:03 am
The Centre on Friday assured the Supreme Court that it was complying with a previous order of not making Aadhaar compulsory for people to avail social benefit schemes, LPG subsidy and other public services.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar made the statement as a bench led by Chief Justice H L Dattu admitted for hearing a PIL which questioned the validity of Aadhaar and sought destruction of data collected till date.
The bench had previously sought the NDA government’s stand on the validity of Aadhaar. Kumar said a batch of similar petitions were already pending in the court and it would be proper if this PIL was also heard alongside them.
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Kumar told the bench that there was an interim order issued in March 2014 by the Supreme Court that people cannot be denied any service or benefit for not having an Aadhaar card, and the Centre was complying with it.
At this, the bench asked Kumar to submit a formal response to the PIL filed by retired Army officer Mathew Thomas, and said that the matter will be taken up by a special bench constituted to hear the related bunch of PILs on Aadhaar.
Senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, appearing for George, argued that the Maharashtra government had issued circulars making the Aadhaar number compulsory to claim wages for its employees and even schools and other institutions were insisting on the card to grant facilities such as scholarships.
He said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had also made the Aadhaar number compulsory for know-your-customer, or KYC, schemes and all banks were therefore insisting on Aadhaar identification.
The bench then made the Maharashtra government and RBI parties to the case and sought their replies.
The PIL has alleged that the security credentials of agencies collecting information from citizens were not thoroughly scrutinised. It further challenged the provision under the Citizenship Act, which empowered the Centre to issue national identity cards despite allegedly being in breach of the fundamental rights relating to privacy and dignity.