SC asks centre if it plans to frame policy to link Aadhaar with social media

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the central government whether it is contemplating any move on framing a policy to regulate social media and linking people's social media accounts with their Aadhaar.

A division bench of Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Aniruddha Bose sought the centre's response by September 24.

"We want to know if Union of India is contemplating something in the near future?" the bench said.

Appearing for the centre Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that he will seek instructions from the government.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing on behalf of WhatsApp, said that even Tamil Nadu government has filed an application for modification of its earlier order, which disallowed the Madras High Court from passing orders till the apex court makes a decision on whether to move the cases out of the lower court.

Tamil Nadu government had, on Thursday, filed an application in the apex court seeking direction to allow the Madras High Court to continue hearing the social media companies case relating to the traceability of online crimes.

Several petitions are pending before Madras, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh High Courts seeking their direction for the interlinking of Aadhaar data with social media accounts for identity authentication.

The top court had, on August 20, issued notices to the Centre, Twitter, Google, and YouTube on a plea filed by Facebook seeking transfer to the court petitions pending before different high courts, demanding interlinking of Aadhaar database with social media profiles.

Facebook and WhatsApp had told the top court that the matter should be adjudicated by it and sought transfer of petitions pending before high courts to the top court as any order passed against them will have global ramifications.