Mandatory Aadhaar-bank account linking: SC rejects TMC MLA's plea

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a plea filed by a Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA challenging the linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar.

The apex court said there were several petitions challenging Aadhaar which were already pending before it and it cannot entertain thousands of pleas raising similar issue.

"Why should we entertain thousands of petitions on the same issue. These issues have already been raised in other petitions. We will permit you to raise this issues through impleadment application before the Constitution Bench," a bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said.

The bench permitted TMC MLA Mahua Moitra to file an application for impleadment as a party in the pending matters which are scheduled to come up before a Constitution Bench in the last week of this month.

Advocate Zoheb Hossain, representing the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), told the bench that 27 petitions related to Aadhaar are already pending consideration before the apex court.

When Moitra's counsel requested the bench to hear the matter, Justice Sikri observed, "I think each and every aspect of Aadhaar has already been challenged in court."

"Since so many petitions are pending consideration before the court, it may not be appropriate to entertain this PIL," the bench said.

The apex court had on November 3 made it clear that banks and telecom service providers will have to indicate the last date of linking bank accounts and mobile numbers with Aadhaar in their communications with customers.

Currently, the last date to link Aadhaar with bank accounts is December 31 this year while for mobile numbers, it is February 6, 2018.

However, the top court did not pass any interim order on the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act as well as linking of 12-digit unique biometric identification number with bank accounts and mobile numbers.

Earlier, the court had issued notice to the Centre on four separate pleas and tagged them with the main petition which would come up for final hearing before a constitution bench.

On October 30, a bench headed by the CJI had said that a constitution bench would be constituted and Aadhaar-related matters would come up for hearing before it in November last.