Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Sunday said that driving licence would be linked to Aadhaar card to check forgery.
While addressing the 75th anniversary celebrations of Bihar Industry Association in Patna, Prasad said to arrest forgery, the government would now ask Aadhaar to be linked with the driving licence.
“Duplicate driving license could not be made if Aadhar becomes mandatory for it,” AIR quoted Prasad as saying. “Aadhar is playing a vital role in checking corruption. Rs 1,47,677 crore has been saved due to digital identity through Aadhar,” the law minister said.
The government has already stopped the process of verification using Aadhaar for driving license. “The Ministry in compliance to the order of the Supreme Court dated September 26, 2018 … stopped the process of verification using Aadhaar for the Driving Licences,” Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari told Rajya Sabha in a written reply in July.
“The process of collection of biometric at the RTOs has been discontinued,” he had added.
The Supreme Court last year struck down some provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, by a 4:1 majority. The apex court said a person s rights could not be denied on the ground of lack of a unique ID.
While the majority judgment, written by Justice AK Sikri in concurrence with CJI Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar, the court upheld the seeding of PAN with Aadhaar and set aside linking Aadhaar to bank accounts and mobile phone numbers.
