Apex Court clarifies that it had not ordered compulsory linkage of mobile numbers with Aadhaar

The Supreme Court has clarified that it had not ordered compulsory linkage of mobile numbers with Aadhaar and clarified that the government wrongly interpreted its February 6, 2017, observation and asserted on doing it. The CJI- headed bench pointed out that February 6, 2017, order merely recorded then-Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi's submission that Aadhaar was one of the documents used for verification of subscriber identity. Notably, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for UIDAI, agreed with the court and stated that the government seemed to have taken the Apex Court's observations for verification of mobile phone users too seriously. The court put the record straight when Dwivedi argued that one-time seeding of mobile number with Aadhaar was not a huge ask and would not lead to any violation of citizens' privacy as no mobile call records were kept through Aadhaar. UIDAI's assertion that the Apex Court had ordered that all mobile networks be linked with Aadhaar had led to confusion, with mobile service providers, poked by the government, overburdening subscribers with urgent messages on the requirement to follow the order. The Apex Court on March 13 had extended indefinitely the deadline to link Aadhaar with mobile connections and bank accounts of people and asked the government to wait till the constitution bench decided the validity of Aadhaar. The Centre had in the meantime accepted to extend the stipulated time-limit for linking bank accounts with Aadhaar till March 31.