Aadhaar has been made mandatory with all the other government schemes and services and announced deadlines for it.
However, the Supreme Court has recently said that it is willing to extend deadlines to March 31st next year to link Aadhaar with various schemes and services, including bank accounts and phone numbers.
The current deadline which people have been adhering to for linking bank accounts and mobile phone numbers with the 12 digit – biometric identification number, are December 31st, 2017 and February 6, 2018 respectively.
However, the petitioners did not get any relief who have been seeking interim relief i.e. stay order on the making Aadhaar mandatory for the basic necessities until all cases pertaining to linkages were solved.
This means government agencies can continue to ask for Aadhaar numbers for schemes and services.
And the relief in case of any may come from a constitution bench that will take place next week to hear all petitions challenging Aadhaar. A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra said only constitution bench will pass any interim order.
The apex court has declared that the constitution bench will take up the Aadhaar case after the hearing in the Delhi – Centre dispute over administrative control of the national capital is over.
The bench said
Attorney General KK Venugopal said that
And this extension has been provided to those who don’t have Aadhaar. And then it changed the decision by saying that the extension of the deadline will be provided for all.
Also, the Supreme Court (SC) have decided to list out the clutch of petitions which challenges the Aadhaar scheme before a five-judge constitution bench before December 31st.
All the petitions regarding Aadhaar have been hanging in Supreme Court since 2014. Hence, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) have decided on 30th October that a Constitution Bench would address all the issues regarding Aadhaar from November last week.
Aadhaar linking with Bank Account – Check Procedure here