Aadhaar card will be Optional : Supreme Court

Aadhaar card will not be   mandatory: Supreme Court
New Delhi (agency) : In an interim order till a Constitution Bench decides on the issue, a three-member Bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Aadhaar should not be used for availing government welfare schemes other than PDS, food grain distribution, cooking fuel/LPG or for criminal investigation on a court’s direction.However, the Court made it clear that even for availing these facilities Aadhaar card will not be   mandatory.The court, in the interim order, said the Central government



should ensure wide publicity through print and electronic media that adhaar card was not mandatory.No personal information of Aadhaar cardholders should be shared by the authorities concerned, it said.Earlier in the day, the court referred to a Constitution Bench a batch of petitions to declare the Aadhaar scheme an intrusion into privacy.Allowing the Centre’s plea, the three-judge Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde, and C. Nagappan framed various questions, including as to whether the right to privacy is a fundamental right, to be decided by the Constitution Bench.