New Delhi, Aug 30: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will resume hearing the Aadhaar case in the first week of November, after Attorney General K K Venugopal informed the apex court that the Centre will extend the deadline to furnish Aadhaar details to avail benefits of various social welfare schemes till December 31.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said there was no urgency to hear the matter after the AG told the bench that the Centre will extend the September 30th deadline.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, representing various petitioners, mentioned the matter before the bench, also comprising Justices Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, and sought early hearing on the batch of petitions which have also challenged the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of of various social welfare schemes.
When Divan referred to the deadline of September 30, Venugopal said, “We (Centre) will extend it to December 31”. “The urgency is not there. It will be listed in the first week of November,” the bench said.
The court has been hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the validity of the 12-digit biometric identification system since 2015. On August 24, a nine-judge constitution bench ruled that privacy is a fundamental right, subject to reasonable restrictions.
“The right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution,” the bench observed.
The five-judge constitution bench hearing the Aadhaar-related matters had referred the privacy matter to a larger bench. The nine-judge bench ruling is likely to have an impact on the Aadhaar case as it runs against the government’s stand that privacy is a fundamental right, but a wholly qualified one.
The government has, however, welcomed the court verdict and claimed it had always supported the view that privacy is a fundamental right.
Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, however, expressed surprise over the government’s reaction. He told The Indian Express that “the government should not have diluted their stand in court”.
He added that had he still been in office as Attorney General, he would have admitted that the government had lost the case.
The kidnapped schoolboy was rescued by the police and reunited with his parents. Son of a gift shop owner from Basavanagudi area in Bengaluru, Chirag has reportedly told police that decided to make some quick money to spend on cricket betting and gambling after learning kidnap tricks from the ‘Crime Patrol’. According to police, Chirag reached a private school around 3pm on Tuesday on a Bounce rental bike and zeroed in on a fourth standard student who was walking out of school. He told the boy he was his father's friend and that he required help to search for a relative who had gone missing. The boy believed Chirag and rode pillion on the bike. Chirag then engaged the boy in conversation and learnt about his father's business and got his mobile phone number. He then made a call to the boy's father, demanded Rs 5 lakh and warned him against approaching cops. However, the boy's father alerted Cottonpet police and special teams were formed to crack the case. While Cottonpet inspector Venkatesh TC's squad verified CCTV footage in and around the school, Chamarajpet inspector BG Kumaraswamy's team started tracking the suspect's mobile phone movements. An hour later, the suspect's location was traced to a hotel on the Lavelle Road-St Mark's Road stretch. Police rushed there, rescued the boy and arrested Chirag.
Comments
SC didnt make aadhar mandatory?
Aadhar is not at all safe. First and foremost it given to private firm. How can we trust a private firm
Still thousands of people are there without aadhar and they are protesting against it.
Actually aadhar is not necessary. But they need to loot in that. govt gave contract to private MNC. Thats why govt threatening by linking and givng deadline and then by changing the deadline
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