New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a petition challenging the Aadhaar ordinance that was issued on February 28 after the failed attempt to amend the last in the last session of Parliament.
The Bill was passed in the LS but it failed the RS muster. The main challenge to the ordinance is to the amendments allowing use of Aadhaar for authentication and offline verification in relation to private services like bank accounts and mobile numbers which were disallowed by the SC in its last September order.
The SC had clearly laid down in the majority judgment that Aadhaar cannot be used for authentication in relation to private services and Justice D Y Chandrachud had gone a step further in the minority judgment to providing Aadhaar data to private players as unconstitutional.
The plea says there is no reason for immediate action to allow authentication of Aadhaar for private services and if there was some urgency, why the ordinance was not brought immediately after the SC verdict.
It also challenges amendments in Section 33 of the Aadhaar Act to once again allow disclosure of Aadhaar information to certain authorities in particular circumstances, but without honouring the SC verdict that such a disclosure in the interest of national security can be mandated only by a judicial officer after due assessment.
