Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra hearing a bunch of petitions against the Aadhaar law that the Centre had extended the deadline in the past too and it can do so again.
The Supreme Court was on Wednesday told that the invasion of citizens' right to privacy since 2009 can't be saved and validated by a 2016 law.
The State cannot sit in judgement and rely only on biometric details to establish the identity of its citizens, a former High Court Judge who has challenged the Aadhaar scheme, told the Supreme Court today.
"As on September 23 last year, the percentage of the state's population with Aadhaar card was 79.88 which jumped to 94.15 per cent on February 10, 2018," the official from General Administration Department said.
The Supreme Court today asked whether the government was not entitled to seek proof of identity from citizens if their entitlement to certain benefits was dependent upon their identities.
In a statement the Aadhaar implementing agency said that "genuine beneficiary" should not be denied essential services like "medical help, hospitalisation, school admission or ration through PDS" for the want of the unique identity number.
The Modi government, which stormed to power in May 2014 on anti-corruption plank has continuously said that by linking various schemes with Aadhaar, it has manage to plug major source of fund leakage in social schemes.
The Supreme Court today said that issues such as denial of benefits to citizens for either want of Aadhaar or due to its non-authentication may not be a ground for holding the law as "unconstitutional".
The Mamata Banerjee government, which had challenged the Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 Act, told a five-judge Constitution bench that Indianness has nothing to do with a particular kind of identity.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday was told that vulnerability of citizens' demographic and biometric data collected under Aadhaar to leaks is itself the violation of their right to privacy.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the West Bengal government, referred to parts of Modi’s recent speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos to assail Aadhaar scheme in the apex court.
The government body clarified that preference to more attractive plastic or PVC smart cards can make people fall to ploys of unscrupulous elements.
The situation also prompted the Madarise Arbia Teachers Association to write to the Madrasa Shiksha Board in this regard.
Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad asserted that the Aadhaar data was fully safe and secure.
If the govt says that linking of Aadhaar with social welfare schemes has helped in weeding out ineligible beneficiaries and plugging pilferage of outgoings, SC bench wondered if it was "possible for the court to maintain some balance".
The President hailed the Prime Minister's Rural Digital Literacy Programme, saying the government has started the world's largest digital literacy programme in the country.
The UIDAI on Sunday sought to allay fears over data protection and privacy issues around the 12 digit biometric identifier, asserting that Aadhaar is an identification not a profiling tool.
The announcement was made at a session "Oxford Dictionaries' Hindi Word of the Year" during the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival here.
Philippines has reportedly expressed interest in India's Unique identification system - Aadhaar.
The Supreme Court will today continue hearing a slew of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, as it was left inconclusive on Tuesday.
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