Centre quotes SC order on Aadhaar

Centre quotes SC order on Aadhaar

What has happened?

Recently, the Aadhaar Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, had questioned the government’s line that its efforts to mandatorily link SIMs with Aadhaar was based on a February 6, 2017 order of the Supreme Court.

Centre’s stand

• The Centre insisted that its earlier move for mandatory seeding of mobile phone SIMs with Aadhaar was based on February 6, 2017 order of the Supreme Court
• This order was based on a PIL petition filed by Lok Niti Foundation, highlighting the need for a “definite mobile phone subscriber verification scheme, to ensure 100% verification of the subscriber.”
• The petitioner had argued that such a scheme was necessary to prevent the use of unverified mobile phone SIMs in domestic crime and terror acts.