Supreme Court extends deadline for Aadhar card linking

The Supreme Court of India has issued an order to extend the deadline for linking the Aaddhaar card to the mobile phones, bank accounts, and various other Government schemes. The extension of the Aadhaar card deadline was requested by Mr. K K Venugopal, the Attorney General of India, to the Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

A lot of people have filled the petition on this issue. The Petitioners opposed the mandatory linking of Aadhaar in all the places and pleaded for an extension of the deadline for such linkage. The petitioners also argued saying that the mandatory linking of the 12-digit unique identity number with services will compromise an individual’s privacy.

On December 15, 2017, the court had directed the extension of deadline till March 31, 2018, for the linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phones.

“If required, we can do it again,” Mr. Venugopal said after petitioners challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar scheme asked for an extension of the deadline to link the 12-digit unique identity number, as reported by The New Indian Times.

The bench, on hearing a number of petitions against the Aadhaar (UIDAI) Law has currently given a statement that March 31st, 2018 will not be the last day to link Aadhaar and that this has been put on hold. However, The Supreme Court also said that Aadhaar will continue to be mandatory for direct benefit transfers under social welfare schemes.