Post Supreme Court Verdict, IT Minister Asks UIDAI To Prepare Action Plan On Aadhaar Use

With Supreme Court giving its final verdict on Aadhaar case thereby restricting the use of Aadhaar data by private entities, the ambiguities have now been resolved. In line with this, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has now reportedly asked Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to prepare an action plan to ensure compliance with Supreme Court judgement.

The IT Minister is said to hold a meeting with IT secretary Ajay Kumar Sawhney and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey to review the status of Aadhaar use in light of the judgement.

The Supreme Court has struck down the Sections 33(2), 47 & 57 Of the Aadhaar Act.

Section 57 of the Act says: “Nothing contained in this Act shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or any body corporate or person, pursuant to any law, for the time being in force, or any contract to this effect”.

The Supreme Court ruled that Aadhaar is mandatory only for filing income tax returns and for the allotment of PAN. It won’t be essential for opening bank accounts or getting SIM cards from telecom operators.

Satisfied with the defence mechanism improvement against the Aadhaar data leaks, the SC has also defined who has the authority to seek Aadhaar data and who doesn’t.

The Aadhaar verdict has been viewed as being in favour of the central government and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Inc42 received mixed reactions from the industry on the Supreme Court verdict.

Most recently, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant shared his opinion with media that “Supreme Court should have asked Indian Govt for guidelines to protect privacy instead of scrapping Section 57 of Aadhaar.”

“By striking down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allowed private entities to use the process, the Supreme Court, unfortunately, has done the ease of doing business a great disservice,” he said.

[The development was reported by ET.]

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