Order on Aadhaar not final, says Supreme Court

The order reiterating the government’s stand that Aadhaar is purely voluntary should not be taken as a direction to Parliament not to pass a law mandating UID, the Supreme Court has said.

The court’s observation comes as a batch of PILs — including the one filed by former Kerala Minister Binoy Viswam- asserted that the government cannot belittle the apex court's order as the sacrosanctity of a judicial order has to be preserved, else it would set a dangerous precedent.

They maintained that the government should not have enacted section 139AA in the Income Tax Act, making it mandatory for every individual PAN card holder to quote Aadhaar for filing returns from July 1.
In their rejoinder arguments, the petitioners led by senior advocate Arvind Datar cited the 2015 apex court order that states Aadhaar to be purely voluntary.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, which reserved its judgement, said it is yet to be "tested" whether Aadhaar violated protection of life and personal liberty granted under Article 21 of the Constitution. The matter is pending before a five-judge bench for an authoritative pronouncement.

The court noted that the earlier orders making Aadhaar voluntary cannot be treated as a "mandamus" (judicial writ) against Parliament.

While the Aadhaar Act was passed in 2016, the 2015 Supreme Court order was a mandamus against a government “scheme” which was an executive order, the court said.
DH News Service