Judgement so far
– Private companies can’t demand Aadhaar
– Children can’t be denied any benefit due to not having Aadhaar. So no Aadhaar is needed for school admissions or any other government scheme which benefits children.
– You have to link your PAN card with Aadhaar but don’t have to provide Aadhaar to banks, telephony companies or any other corporation
– Individuals can approach courts to file cases under the Aadhaar Act.
Aadhaar not mandatory for opening of bank accounts, mobile connections
Section 57 of Aadhaar Act struck down, Private companies can’t ask for Aadhaar, rules Supreme Court
SC upholds validity of Aadhaar saying sufficient security measures are taken to protect data and difficult to launch surveillance on citizens on basis of Aadhaar. However it provided some more security measures as well as reduces period of storage of data.
A battery of senior lawyers, including Shyam Divan, Gopal Subramaniam, Kapil Sibal, P Chidambaram, Arvind Datar, K V Vishwanath, Anand Grover, Sajan Poovayya and a few others, had argued on behalf of the petitioners opposing Aadhaar on various grounds. Besides former HC judge Puttaswamy, the top lawyers argued for petitioners, who included Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha, feminist researcher Kalyani Sen Menon, social activists Aruna Roy, Nikhil De, Nachiket Udupa and CPI leader Binoy Visman.
The Supreme Court will today pronounce its verdict on a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act. A five-judge bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, reserved its verdict in the case on May 10 after a 38-day hearing. The bench, also comprising Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, is expected to deliver the verdict after 10.30 am. There are three separate judgments today from Justices Sikri, Chandrachud and Bhushan. The CJI and Justice Khanwilkar will not deliver separate judgments and will concur with one of the three other judges.
