Delhi High Court leaves it to government to decide plea to link property documents with Aadhaar

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Central and Delhi government to decide a plea to link property documents with Aadhaar within three months [Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v Union of India and Ors]. .A Division Bench of Justices Rajiv Shakdher and Girish Kathpalia directed the government to treat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashwini Upadhyay's Public Interest Litigation (PIL) as a representation and disposed of the plea. The Court remarked that this is an issue which is best left to the government. "No one is saying that corruption is not a problem. The problem is empirical evidence. They [government] will have to do study and see the cross and benefits of the two... It is not something that we can sit here and do,” the Court said.The Bench further said that if necessary, the authorities can take assistance from Upadhyay as well..Upadhyay moved the Court contending that linking of Aadhaar with property documents would curb corruption, black money and benami transactions.The government, he said, is duty bound to take steps to curb corruption and black money and seize benami properties in order to secure the goals set under Article 21 of the Constitution.Linking movable-immovable properties with the owner’s Aadhaar number could be an answer to curb the menace, he submitted.“Black money holders would be forced to declare their unaudited movable and unmovable properties and it will take years to generate that amount of benami property again. Thus, in a long way it will help in putting an end to the black money generation.”Listing the benefits of the system, Upadhyay further claimed that if the government made it mandatory to link property documents with Aadhaar, it would lead to an increment of 2% in annual growth.“(Linking Aadhaar with property documents) will clean our electoral process, which is dominated by black-money and benami transaction and thrives on a cycle of large black investments, capture of power through foul means, use of political strength to amass private wealth, all with disdain,” the plea added.