(FE)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear a batch of petitions challenging various aspects of Aadhaar in the first week of November.While senior advocate Shyam Divan, representing various petitioners, sought early hearing on the issue, the Centre told a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra that it will extend the deadline for mandatory Aadhaar to avail social welfare benefits to December 31 from the earlier September 30. Attorney-general KK Venugopal made this statement in view of last week’s historic decision by the nine-judge Constitution bench on August 24 that declared the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
Venugopal also urged the Supreme Court to set up a five-judge Constitution bench to hear Aadhaar-related issues. A total of 22 cases have been tagged by the apex court to be heard by a smaller bench on Aadhaar. They challenge several aspects of the Aadhaar scheme, including the mandatory parting of biometric details like iris scans and fingerprints, thus alleging violation of the citizens’ right to privacy. Among these challenges are those involving the use and sharing of data collected under the programme, making Aadhaar mandatory for social welfare benefits, infringement of the right to privacy, and making Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and for obtaining and retaining a permanent account number, or PAN.
