Supreme Court: After Senior Advocate Arvind Datar brought to the notice of the Court that the Central Board of Secondary Education (C.B.S.E.) has passed an order directing all the students to produce Aadhar number to register themselves for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) examination, the 5-judge bench of Dipak Misra, CJ and Dr. AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, Dr. DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, JJ, directed:
“the students who intend to register in the said Board for NEET examination and for any other All India examinations, need not necessarily produce the Aadhaar number for the present, but they may be asked to produce any alternative identification number, such as ration card, passport, voter ID, driving licence and bank account.”
The Court also asked C.B.S.E. to upload the necessary information on their website so that students are not affected.
The said interim order was passed during Day 15 of the Aadhaar Hearing where Senior Advocates like Shyam Divan, Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subramanium and Arvind Datar have been arguing on the issue of Aadhaar being made mandatory by the Government despite various interim orders passed by the Supreme Court. Senior Advocate and Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had begun his submissions on the issue of Aadhaar Act, 2016 being passed as a Money Bill. He will continue his arguments on the next date of hearing i.e. March 13, 2018, after which the Court will decide on whether or not to pass an interim order on the issue of extending the deadline for linking Aadhaar to Bank Accounts. As per the present deadline, it is mandatory to get the Aadhaar linked to the Bank accounts by March 31, 2018. The Court had earlier, on 15.12.2017, extended the deadline for linkage with Schemes, Bank Accounts, Mobile Phones from December 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018. [Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No.494/2012, order dated 07.03.2018]
Also, read the highlights from the ongoing Aadhaar Hearing before the 5-judge bench:
To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Arvind Datar’s submissions, click here and here.
To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium’s submissions, click here, here and here.
To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal’s arguments, click here, here and here.
Looking for the detailed submissions of Senior Advocate Shyam Divan? Read the highlights from Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6 and Day 7 of the hearing.
