Govt defends in Supreme Court its decision on Aadhaar linking with mobiles

SC said the government had misinterpreted its order and used it as a "tool" to make Aadhaar mandatory for mobile users

The Centre on Thursday strongly defended its decision to seed Aadhaar numbers with mobile phones, telling the Supreme Court that it could have been hauled up for contempt if the verification of mobile users was not undertaken by it.

However, the top court said the government had misinterpreted its order and used it as a "tool" to make Aadhaar mandatory for mobile users.

A five judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, hearing a clutch of petitions challenging Aadhaar and its enabling 2016 law, was told by Attorney General K K Venugopal that it was the specific direction of the