Aadhaar linking deadline conditionally extended till March 31: Centre to Supreme Court

Attorney General K K Venugopal told the apex court  bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra that the Centre is ready to extend the Aadhar linking deadline of Dec 31 to March 31 next year.

Aadhaar is the world's largest biometric ID system, with over 1.171 billion enrolled members as of 15 Aug 2017 which is over 99% of Indians aged 18 and above being enrolled in the scheme.

The Attorney General told that the court that the government will notify for the extension on Friday.

However, reports said the deadline of Feb 6 for Aadhaar linking to cellphone number cannot be extended, since the date has been specified by the Supreme Court.

According to an NDTV report, the petitioners against the mandatory Aadhar linking  have objected to the conditional extension of deadline. 

"Our case is those who have Aadhaar must also be allowed not to link. There are fears that Aadhaar will be misused,"  Udayaditya Banerjee, the advocate representing the petitioner was quoted by the news channel saying.

"We have challenged the Aadhaar scheme itself. We wanted the court to pass interim orders," he added.d

The petitioners earlier had moved the apex court against mandatory Aadhar linking to bank accounts and phone numbers contending that it will be against individual right to privacy.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a statutory authority established under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (“Aadhaar Act 2016”) on 12 July 2016 by the Government of India, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

UIDAI was created with the objective to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named as "Aadhaar", to all residents of India that is (a) robust enough to eliminate duplicate and fake identities, and (b) can be verified and authenticated in an easy, cost-effective way.