The Union government on Monday informed a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra that it was willing to extend up to March 31 next year the deadline fixed for mandatory linking of the Aadhaar card with various schemes and services such as bank accounts and mobile phone services.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear a batch of petitions challenging mandatory linking of Aadhaar for granting various services to citizens after its Constitution bench concluded hearing the Delhi-Centre dispute.
The bench, also comprising Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, said only the Constitution bench would pass an interim order in the matter.
The petitioners challenging the Aadhaar linking scheme have been pressing for an interim stay order on the government's decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for welfare schemes.
The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of pleas filed by the Delhi government against a Delhi High Court verdict, which had held that Delhi is not a state and the lieutenant governor (LG) is its administrative head.
On October 30, a bench headed by the chief justice of India had said that a Constitution bench would be constituted and Aadhaar-related matters would come up for hearing before it.
The Supreme Court had on November 13 refused to entertain a plea challenging the linking of mobile numbers with Aadhaar, saying several similar petitions were already pending before it.
The court had on February 6 asked the Centre to put in place within a year an effective mechanism to scrutinise details of identity of over 100 crore existing and future mobile telephone consumers.
It had on November 3 made it clear that banks and telecom service providers would 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.
