Apex court turns down AG's plea seeking stay on Aadhaar order

Attoney General sought court to stop subsidized supply of gas without Aadhaar

The Supreme Court today rejected the prayer of Attorney General for interim stay of its order declaring that no one in the country should suffer because one has no Aadhaar number.

In view of the importance of the issues, the court agreed to hear all parties supporting and opposing the order finally on October 22. Apart from a few central ministries and three public sector undertakings (PSUs), there are several other parties, like activist Aruna Roy, who have joined issue in the court.

Attorney General G E Vahanvati, representing the Petroleum Ministry, submitted that the earlier order of September 23 will have “serious consequences” if it remained in operation. He wanted the court to stop subsidized supply of gas without Aadhaar. Counsel said that the government is subsidizing Rs 40,000 crore only on gas cylinders.

According to him, ration cards and election cards are easily duplicated, but Aadhaar is immune from forgery. Counsel insisted that no one is compelled to get the identity (UID) and the scheme is completely voluntary. It is a condition only to get subsidized benefits. Anyone is free to buy gas cylinder from open market beyond the 9-cylinder limit for Aadhaar holders.

The Attorney General insisted that the government has the power to invoke executive power to implement the scheme; this issue has been decided two years ago, according to him.

The judges remarked that all the issues before the court will be over if an Act is passed. Now the scheme is implemented without a law, rule, regulation or circular. They said that their basic concern was to provide essential items to the people. Aadhaar is required to get even salary in Bombay high court, one judge said.

The issues blew up after a retired judge of the Karnataka high court K S Puttaswamy moved the Supreme Court alleging that the scheme was being enforced all over the country without any parliamentary sanction. He also raised the issue of privacy as the Aadhaar number provides personal details of all citizens to the government.

After the Supreme Court passed an interim order on September 23, the issue has created confusion in several states and petitions have been filed in different high courts, apart from half a dozen in the Supreme Court itself.