SC to Announce Verdict on Aadhaar on Wednesday
On May 10, the Constitution bench had reserved its order after 38 days of hearing on various petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court is set to pronounce its judgement on various petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other. Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, according to Live Law.
On May 10, the Constitution Bench, consisting of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AK Sikri, Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan had reserved the order after 38 days of hearing on the petitions that have pleaded that the Aadhar Act violated the fundamental right to privacy.
According to agency reports, the bench was informed by Attorney General K K Venugopal that this had become the “second longest” case in terms of days of hearing after the historic Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.
“The Kesavananda Bharati case was heard for five months and this matter continued for four-and-half months. This is the second longest hearing of a case in history,” Venugopal told the bench, as per newspaper reports.
The Kesavananda Bharati case, which was heard by a 13-judge bench, by a majority of 7:6 had propounded the doctrine of ‘Basic Structure and of the Constitution’ had held that the amendments which may affect this structure were subject to judicial review.
During the 38-day-long hearing, a host of senior lawyers, such as Shyam Divan, Gopal Subramanium, Kapil Sibal, P Chidambaram, Arvind Datar, K V Vishwanath, Anand Grover, Sajan Poovayya among others had argued on behalf of petitioners, which include Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha, feminist researcher Kalyani Sen Menon, social activists Aruna Roy, Nikhil De, Nachiket Udupa and CPI leader Binoy Visman.
A key argument against the Aadhaar scheme was that it was violative of the nine-judge bench verdict that had held that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution.
The Centre and the Unique Identification Authority of India, the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat and the Reserve Bank of India, which are in favour of the Aadhaar Act, were represented by the Attorney General, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Jayant Bhushan and lawyer Zoheb Hossain.
During the hearing, the court had also not agreed prima facie with the government’s contention that the Aadhaar law was correctly termed as a Money Bill by the Lok Sabha Speaker as it dealt with “targeted delivery of subsidies” for which funds came from the Consolidated Fund of India.
In an interim order in March this year, the Supreme Court had also extended the mandatory linking of bank accounts and mobile phones 'indefinitely' till judgement on the petitions pending before it was delivered.
(With inputs from IANS)
Get the latest reports & analysis with people's perspective on Protests, movements & deep analytical videos, discussions of the current affairs in your Telegram app. Subscribe to NewsClick's Telegram channel & get Real-Time updates on stories, as they get published on our website.
