Aadhaar linking deadline for all schemes extended till March 31, orders Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Friday extended the deadline of Aadhaar linkages to all schemes till March 31.

The apex court agreed to Centre’s submissions and the five-judge Constitution bench of Supreme Court passed the interim order on Friday.

The interim order also applies to linking of Aadhaar with mobile phones.

Earlier, during hearing today, Attorney General KK Venugopal, representing the Centre, said the government was willing to extend the deadline up to March 31 next year for mandatory linking of the national biometric identifier to avail the benefit of various services and welfare measures.

Venugopal, however, sought the court’s go-ahead to ensure that Aadhaar is mandatory for opening of new bank accounts.

At least six senior advocates led by Shyam Divan gave short submissions to put their point across challenging the constitutional validity of the unique identification scheme, though the top court stuck to the limited issue of linking Aadhaar to bank accounts, postponing the larger issue to January 17, when the matter will be heard next.

The government had yesterday issued a notification to extend till March 31 the deadline for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number (PAN) for bank accounts and certain financial transactions. However, there is still no word on extending …read more