Aadhaar row: SC to check if provisions in Act violated right to privacy or not
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will take up for hearing next week, a fresh PIL challenging the circulars making mandatory the linking of Aadhaar card with telecom service providers, bank accounts and for availing several other services.
The petitioner Dr Kalyani Menon, social activist in her writ petition filed through counsel Vipin Nair said the present PIL is being filed to raise issues which endanger fundamental rights of citizens, protected under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
The cases relating to Aadhaar card are to be heard by a three-judge Bench following the ruling given by a nine-judge Bench holding that ‘right to privacy’ is a fundamental right.
The court will examine whether the provisions in the Aadhaar Act and the circulars issued violated the right to privacy or not.
The writ petition challenges Rule 2(b) of the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017, by which submission of an Aadhaar number has been made mandatory for individual clients, companies, partnership firms and trusts for: opening of bank accounts; maintaining existing bank accounts; making any financial transactions of and above '50,000; and crediting foreign remittance into ‘small accounts’.
Existing bank account holders have been directed to furnish Aadhaar numbers before December 21, 2017. Non-compliance with the Impugned Provision will render the concerned bank accounts in-operational indefinitely, subject to submission of the Aadhaar number and the PAN.
