“To avail the government welfare schemes like employment guarantee, pension and bank accounts, Aadhar Card may be used,” Supreme Court says.

In the past, as per the court’s order, the Aadhar card was used only voluntarily for availing the subsidies of the government like, purchasing kerosene, cooking gas etc.

Upon this, the government tried to persuade the Supreme Court for extending the Aadhar card uses after a slew of blows to the unique identity or the UID programme following the privacy petitions. So now, the latest judgment is considered as a big relief to the government.   

As per the new order, now Aadhar card can be used for availing various schemes like  Jan-Dhan Yojana, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, pension schemes and provident funds.    

Referring to the petition, the court said that, when the card is being used for a few of the government schemes voluntarily, there is no valid reason to prevent it from using, in other schemes. 

Privacy concerns in Aadhar Card cleared!

Further, senior lawyers Gopal Subramanium and Shyam Diwan said that, Aadhaar does not have the Parliament mandate and also the authority to collect biometric data.

But the court asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to name a few government services where the card could be used voluntarily.

Along with the Centre, Reserve Bank of India, telecom regulator TRAI, stock market watchdog SEBI and various other states are involved in moving the Supre Court towards extending the usage of the Aadhar Card in a number of other government services. 

Privacy concerns are challenged in the case of UID scheme, saying that, it uses the biometric data like fingerprint and iris scans. Regarding this, the court had already referred a related debate over whether privacy is a fundamental right to a constitution bench.  

After the fresh rule, the Supreme Court is also going to deliberate the legal validity of the Aadhar Card.   

By Phani Ch