#Aadhaar: Plea for urgent hearing turned down again by Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has turned down a plea for urgent hearing of the Aadhaar case for the second time..A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar turned down the plea by Senior Advocate Shyam Divan, while also remarking that the interim orders of the Court, which state that Aadhaar is not mandatory but voluntary, are only with respect to social welfare schemes..The Central government has been coming out with one notification after another, allegedly in violation of the orders passed by the Supreme Court..The August 11, 2015 order of the Supreme Court states that obtaining Aadhaar shall not be mandatory. It states:.“The Union of India shall give wide publicity in the electronic and print media including radio and television networks that it is not mandatory for a citizen to obtain an Aadhaar card..The production of an Aadhaar card will not be condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen.”.The order also clarifies that Aadhaar can be “used” by the Centre for PDS and LPG distribution schemes. This interim order of August 11 was subsequently modified by another order passed on October 15. By this, the Court extended the permission to use Aadhaar for MNREGA, Employees Provident Fund, National Social Assistance Programme and Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana..However, both the orders, though giving permission to the Centre to use Aadhaar for the exempted schemes, do not talk about permission to make it mandatory. In fact, both the orders spell out that Aadhaar is a voluntary scheme and it cannot be made mandatory until the matter is finally decided by the Supreme Court..On January 3 and January 4 this year, the Centre issued two notifications making Aadhaar number compulsory for MNREGA and EPS..Immediately after the two notifications were issued, the matter was mentioned on January 5 before Chief Justice Khehar by one of the petitioners through Senior Advocate Shyam Divan. Though Divan sought an early hearing in the matter, the court brushed aside the same and declined this request for the time being..Fresh from the confidence of non-interference by the apex court, the Centre acted again. This time, they made it mandatory to have Aadhaar to file Income Tax Returns and to apply for a PAN Number..This prompted the petitioner to mention the matter again today..However, the Bench opined that the interim orders are only with respect to availing ‘benefits’ like social welfare schemes and do not cover the current areas which have been notified by the Centre. Hence, it turned down the request for listing interim petitions..The Court also turned down the request for early listing of the main matter, citing unavailability of judges, since the matter has to be heard by a Constitution Bench.