Never asked government to link Aadhaar to SIM, says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court yesterday raised questions over the government's decision ordering mandatory seeding of mobile numbers with Aadhaar and said its earlier order on mandatory authentication of the users was used as a "tool".

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, hearing a clutch of petitions challenging Aadhaar and its enabling 2016 law, said its order on a PIL filed by Lokniti Foundation had said that mobile users needed to be verified in the interest of national security. "In fact there was no such direction from the Supreme Court, but you took it and used it as a tool to make Aadhaar mandatory for mobile users," said the bench.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), said the direction to seed mobile with Aadhaar was taken in pursuance of TRAI's recommendation. Besides, the government was entitled and had legitimate state interest to ensure that a SIM card is given to only those who applied, he said. Dwivedi concluded his arguments saying that Central Identities Data Repository was safe, data was encrypted and was held offline and above all, the Aadhaar scheme was safer than smart cards as there was no chance of data breach.

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