Aadhaar constitutionally valid said the five-judge Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan, Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice J Sikri
“Aadhaar is constitutionally valid,” said majority of the five-judge Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan, Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice J Sikri. Justice J Sikri pronounced the judgement for himself, Justice Khanwilkar and CJI Dipak Misra.
1.Justice Sikri upheld Aadhaar being passed as the money bill by the parliament.
2.Justice Sikri said that there has been minimal demographic and biometric data collected by UIDAI for Aadhaar enrollment and UIDAI has empowered and gives identity to marginalised sections of society.
3.The bench also struck down the national security exception under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act.
4.The bench agreed that telecom service providers can’t seek linking of Aadhar and Justice Chandrachud also favoured the deletion of data collected by the mobile service providers.
5.SC says no child can be denied benefits of any schemes on not being able to bring their Aadhaar number.
6.Justice Bhushan said that the government has given sufficient reasons to uphold Sec 7 of Aadhaar Act which deals with grant of subsidies, welfare benefits.
7.CBSE, NEET, UGC cannot make Aadhaar mandatory, also not compulsory for school admissions.
8.It is not mandatory to link Aadhaar to bank accounts now. However, Aadhaar is mandatory for filing of I-T returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number, says SC.
9.Section 57 which said that private entities can entail Aadhaar was struck down by Justice Sikri. No private company can now ask for Aadhaar.
10.The court also said there is no possibility of obtaining a duplicate Aadhaar card but agreed that the government needs to ensure that illegal immigrants do not get Aadhaar and robust data protection law has to be brought in place as early as possible.
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