The Supreme Court on Monday cautioned government officials against insisting on Aadhaar cards for citizens to avail any benefit, saying that such an action would have serious consequences for them.
A three-judge bench presided over by Justice J Chelameswar asked the Centre to write to all the state governments to ensure that the officials adhered to the apex court order of September 23, 2013 wherein it was held that Aadhaar was not mandatory for the people. “We will take the officers to task if any order comes on record making it (Aadhaar cards) mandatory,” the bench said.
Acting on a set of petitions, including the one filed by Justice K S Puttaswamy, former Karnataka High Court judge, the apex court had earlier ordered, “No person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card in spite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory and when any person applies to get the Aadhaar card voluntarily, it may be checked whether that person is entitled for it under the law and it should not be given to any illegal immigrant.”
A newly-constituted bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and C Nagappan, resumed hearing on the petitions challenging Constitutional validity of the card being issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India.
Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, appearing for one of the petitioners, pointed out a notification issued by the Delhi government on March 9 that sought Aadhaar number of couples who wanted to get their marriage registered under the Special Marriage Act.
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