Five judge Constitution bench of SC set to hear Aadhaar cases today

New Delhi: A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court is set to hear on Tuesday a challenge to various issues surrounding Aadhaar with the main focus on privacy issues. The bench will consider whether Aadhaar violates the right of privacy.

The bench, comprising Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar, and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde and Abdul Nazeer, will examine a plethora of issues arising out of the Centre’s 12-digit biometric identification number.

A total of 22 cases were tagged by the Supreme Court to be heard by the constitution bench. They challenge several aspects of Aadhaar and the use/sharing of data collected under it.

Among these challenges are making Aadhaar mandatory for social welfare benefits, infringement of right to privacy, making Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns (ITRs) as well as for obtaining and retaining PAN.

To make this decision, the Supreme Court will have to consider legal precedents and study the scope of privacy under each of them to decide on the number of judges. The five judges would then either continue to look into the privacy issue or refer the issue back to the chief justice for the constitution of a nine-judge bench.