New Delhi: A larger Bench of five or more judges of the Supreme Court will decide whether ‘right to privacy’ is a fundamental right and collecting and compiling both the demographic and biometric data of the residents of this country for Aadhaar card to be used for various purposes, will violate the right to privacy.
A three-judge Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde and C. Nagappan on Tuesday referred a batch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar card to Chief Justice H.L. Dattu for posting before a larger Bench.
In its order, the Bench said, “One of the grounds of attack on the scheme is that the very collection of such biometric data is violative of the “right to privacy”. The Bench, also comprising Justices S.A. Bobde and C. Nagappan, passed a slew of directions for the Centre till the matter is “finally decided by a larger Bench”.
“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,” it said, adding, “the production of an Aadhaar card will not be condition for obtaining any benefits.” The UID number “won’t be used” for purposes “other than the PDS Scheme, it said.
