The Supreme Court has permitted citizens to voluntarily use Aadhaar cards to avail benefits under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, along with Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and schemes related to pension and PF after the government promised that absence of Aadhaar would not debar people from benefiting from the schemes concerned.
The relief came from a bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justices M Y Eqbal, C Nagappan, Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy , which clarified the August 11 interim order of a three-judge bench and allowed linking of Aadhaar on a voluntary basis to these four schemes. The interim order had restricted voluntary use of Aadhaar card to LPG subsidy and getting ration under PDS.
The concession came after AG Mukul Rohatgi furnished an undertaking to the court that no citizen would be denied benefits under social welfare schemes for want of Aadhaar card. The court for its part laid down two pre-conditions -government would not force citizens to enroll for Aadhaar card, and they would not make it the eligibility criterion for benefits under various schemes.
Petitioners' counsel senior advocates Shyam Divan, Soli J Sorabjee and Gopal Subramaniam reluctantly agreed to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar to these four schemes after the five-judge bench remained struck to its point -if the card could be voluntarily used for availing LPG subsidy and ration, why should it be not true for other schemes.
The Centre had landed in a tight spot by strenuously arguing that right to privacy was not a fundamental right when petitioners had challenged the biometric data fingerprints and iris image in the Aadhaar card as gross violation of privacy as storage of citizens' personal data was not fully secured.
To counter the petitioners, the Centre had cited two SC judgments, one by an eight judge bench and another by a six-judge bench, holding that citizens did not have a fundamental right to privacy . Finding confusion in the judicial rulings, a three-judge bench had on August 11 referred the petitions to a larger bench for determining whether right to privacy was a fundamental right and whether Aadhaar cards violated it.
This made the Centre rush to the three-judge bench with an application seeking clarification of the August 11 order to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar card to get benefit under all social welfare schemes.
The relief came from a bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justices M Y Eqbal, C Nagappan, Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy , which clarified the August 11 interim order of a three-judge bench and allowed linking of Aadhaar on a voluntary basis to these four schemes. The interim order had restricted voluntary use of Aadhaar card to LPG subsidy and getting ration under PDS.
The concession came after AG Mukul Rohatgi furnished an undertaking to the court that no citizen would be denied benefits under social welfare schemes for want of Aadhaar card. The court for its part laid down two pre-conditions -government would not force citizens to enroll for Aadhaar card, and they would not make it the eligibility criterion for benefits under various schemes.
Petitioners' counsel senior advocates Shyam Divan, Soli J Sorabjee and Gopal Subramaniam reluctantly agreed to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar to these four schemes after the five-judge bench remained struck to its point -if the card could be voluntarily used for availing LPG subsidy and ration, why should it be not true for other schemes.
The Centre had landed in a tight spot by strenuously arguing that right to privacy was not a fundamental right when petitioners had challenged the biometric data fingerprints and iris image in the Aadhaar card as gross violation of privacy as storage of citizens' personal data was not fully secured.
To counter the petitioners, the Centre had cited two SC judgments, one by an eight judge bench and another by a six-judge bench, holding that citizens did not have a fundamental right to privacy . Finding confusion in the judicial rulings, a three-judge bench had on August 11 referred the petitions to a larger bench for determining whether right to privacy was a fundamental right and whether Aadhaar cards violated it.
This made the Centre rush to the three-judge bench with an application seeking clarification of the August 11 order to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar card to get benefit under all social welfare schemes.
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