The Supreme Court on Thursday observed that Aadhaar cannot stop bank frauds, adding, officials seemingly are hand in glove with the fraudsters.”Aadhar can do little to stop it,” the court observed.
The top court’s five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, is also examining few petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhar and its enabling 2016 law. The Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court during the arguments that the Aadhar scheme had been approved by experts and was not open to judicial review as it was a policy decision.
When the bench questioned Centre over the opposition that the Aadhaar is facing, the top law officer had on Wednesday claimed that Aadhaar scheme satisfies the test of proportionality by showing a rational nexus between the means and the goal. Attorney General KK Venugopal also added that the State has a legitimate state interest in rolling out Aadhaar.
The court said that “biological attributes” are open-ended when questions were raised about what if authorities sought more biometric details for Aadhar. The bench said the authorities may expand and include some more biometric features in the Aadhaar scheme in future which can amount to “excessive delegation of powers” by Parliament.
The Central government has made it mandatory for all financial institutions, including banks, to verify and link Aadhaar of the customers with their accounts. (With inputs from ANI)