Supreme Court to hear PIL on compulsory Aadhaar link
The court will examine whether the provisions in the Aadhaar Act and the circulars issued violated the right to privacy or not.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will take up for the hearing next week, a fresh PIL challenging the circulars making mandatory for linkage of Aadhaar card with telecom service providers, bank accounts and for availing several other services.
Petitioner Dr Kalyani Menon, a social activist in her writ petition filed through counsel Vipin Nair said the present PIL is being filed to raise issues which endanger Fundamental Rights of citizens, protected under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
The cases relating to Aadhaar card is to be heard by a three-judge Bench following the ruling was given by a nine-judge Bench holding that “right to privacy” is a fundamental right. The court will examine whether the provisions in the Aadhaar Act and the circulars issued violated the right to privacy or not.
The writ petition challenges Rule 2(b) of the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017, by which submission of an Aadhaar Number has been made mandatory for individual clients, companies, partnership firms and trusts for: opening of bank accounts; maintaining existing bank accounts; making any financial transactions of and above `50,000; and crediting foreign remittance into ‘small accounts.
Existing bank account holders have been directed to furnish Aadhaar Numbers before December 31 2017.
Non-compliance with the Impugned Provision will render the concerned bank accounts in-operational indefinitely, subject to submission of the Aadhaar Number and the Permanent Account Number (PAN).
The petition further seeks to challenge the circular dated March 23 issued by the Department of Telecommunication wherein it has been made mandatory for all mobile phone holders to link their mobile phone numbers with Aadhaar.
The petitioner contended that the impugned provision and the impugned circular is unconstitutional as reliance on Aadhar and its use for meeting Know Your Customer (KYC) obligations constitutes a serious compromise of India’s commitments under international law and policy.