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.
Also, the deadline for Aadhaar – bank account linkage date is drawing near i.e. December 31st. And the Aadhaar – mobile linkage deadline is February 6, 2018. And both the linkage has been challenged as a violation of fundamental right to privacy.
Senior Advocate K.K Venugopal had said that a Constitution Bench may be set up to decide all the Aadhaar issues once and for all.
The decision to set up a five-judge Bench has come despite Justice Rohinton Nariman’s separate judgment in the nine-judge Bench declaring the right to privacy as a fundamental right. Justice Nariman’s judgment had directed the Aadhaar petitions to be posted for hearing before the “original” three-judge Bench.
This ‘original’ Bench led by Justice J. Chelameswar had referred the petitions for hearing before a five-judge Bench. The five-judge had found it necessary to first decide whether privacy was a fundamental right or not before hearing the Aadhaar petitions.
And recently, Supreme Court have passed a historic judgement that Right to Privacy is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
And the decision had an effect on Aadhaar petitions which states that Aadhaar’s use of biometric details like fingerprints and iris scans violates bodily and informational privacy.
Petitioners state that Aadhaar card is an invasion of privacy and a terrible violation of basic human rights.