A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra on Wednesday commenced the much awaited hearing on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar cards.
Twenty-seven petitions challenging the 12-digit identity number based on biometric information made mandatory for availing various services have been filed in the Supreme Court.
The landmark hearing comes five months after a nine-judge bench of the SC ruled that Indians enjoy a fundamental right to privacy, which it is intrinsic to life and liberty and thus comes under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The nine-judge bench had not dealt with the validity of Aadhaar cards and had left it to another five-judge bench. It had merely directed that the government set up a fool-proof data protection regime.
Aadhaar cards are being opposed by many petitioners led by Karnataka high court judge K Puttaswamy, and social activist Aruna Roy on grounds of privacy and security violation.
They argued that details for Aadhaar are collected by private contractors and NGOs hired by UIDAI without any safeguard, which makes them prone to misuse.
They claimed empirical research to show that the biometric identification denoted for UID, namely the iris scan and finger print identification, is faulty and is also capable of being abused.
The order to link Aadhaar with mobile and bank accounts which were subsequently issued are also under challenge.
On December 15, as an interim order, the constitution bench headed by CJI Misra passed a judicial order extending dates for all linking's including Aadhaar-mobile number to March 31, 2018.
Earlier the deadline for linking mobile number to Aadhaar was February 6.
CJI Misra on Wednesday met Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh and discussed various issues relating to administration of justice in the apex court amid the ongoing crisis in the higher judiciary over allocation of work.
A communication from the SCBA said that Singh met the CJI and flagged various administrative issues and suggested allocation of work in SC on the lines of roster allotment in Delhi HC.
The HC periodically puts up on its website a list indicating the type of matters to be taken up by each division or a single-judge bench for a specified period of time.
Four senior-most judges - Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph - had in an unprecedented presser on January 12 raised a litany of problems, including assigning of cases in SC, and said there were certain issues afflicting the country's highest court.
Singh raised a host of issues with the CJI, including the matter of seniority, and said this needed to be sorted out at the earliest.
He also discussed that there should be a method for recommending lawyers practising in SC for elevation to various HCs.