Aadhaar linking March 31 deadline may be extended; here’s how many times it has been extended earlier

The deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various services may get extended beyond March 31. The government has told the Supreme Court that it may extend the deadline from March 31 considering that the Aadhaar issue is being heard in court and some more time would be needed to conclude the prolonged hearings, PTI reported.

Attorney General K K Venugopal — chief legal advisor to the government — told the apex court that deadline for Aadhaar linking has been extended in the past and could be done one more time to enable the petitioners in the case to conclude the arguments. A five-judge Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan agreed.

Here’s how many times Aadhaar-linking deadline has been extended:

December 31: December was the month when everybody told everybody to link their Aadhaar to various services. But the court intervened and asked the government to extend the Aadhaar linking to bank accounts and PAN until March 31. The ripple effect led to an extension of the deadline for other services as well — mutual funds, phone number etc.

August 31: The August 31 deadline for Aadhaar linking with PAN was extended from August 31 to December 31, while the matter was being heard in court over privacy and constitutionality issues.

July 31: Section 139 AA (2) of the Income Tax Act says that every person having PAN as on July 1, 2017, and eligible to obtain Aadhaar, must intimate his Aadhaar number to the tax authorities. After this, the first deadline for linking Aadhaar with PAN was fixed on July 31, which was extended to August 31.

The Aadhaar conundrum:

On January 17, a five-judge Constitution bench began hearing on about 28 petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and its linking to a number of government schemes. Of these, there are two most important issues that are being challenged in the court — whether or not it breaches the right to privacy, and Aadhaar Act’s constitutionality as it was passed as a money bill.

The Supreme Court acknowledged the difficulty in complying with the March 31 deadline by various service providers in view of the pending judgement on the several PILs over Aadhaar — including its validity and breach of privacy. Besides the legal battle, Aadhaar has been in controversy over security issues.

Earlier this year, a report by Tribune claimed that some of Aadhaar details were up for sale only for Rs 500, which was denied by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), saying that there was no breach of biometric data. However, it filed an FIR against the newspaper, its reporter and anonymous persons for selling Aadhaar data over Whatsapp.

Following the report of the alleged breach and several other reports of people facing difficulty in biometric recognition, the UIDAI launched an additional security layer — a 12 digit virtual ID system. The UIDAI also gave biometric exemption to children below 5 years of age as their data may change as they grow old.

As per latest data, Aadhaar — the 12-digit random number — has got the registration of over 1.17 billion people in India. The Narendra Modi government has been pushing mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various services with an aim to bring transparency in the system and to weed out fake documentation. However, there has been no indication of any decision regarding linking Aadhaar with voter IDs in the country.