Holding

The Court extended the deadline for Aadhaar linkage to 31 March 2018 for all schemes, bank accounts and mobile e‑KYC, subject to specified conditions, and ordered the final hearing for 17 January 2018.

Summary

The Supreme Court, hearing Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (Writ Petition No. 494 of 2012), considered interim orders that limited the use of Aadhaar to six government schemes and made its linkage voluntary pending a final decision. The petitioners argued that the Union could not make Aadhaar mandatory without a legislative framework, while the Union, represented by the Attorney General, sought to extend deadlines for Aadhaar linkage across all schemes, bank accounts and mobile e‑KYC. The Court noted the need for clarity before the Constitution Bench’s final hearing and, therefore, extended the deadline for Aadhaar linkage to 31 March 2018 for all schemes, existing and new bank accounts (subject to submission of Aadhaar application details), and mobile e‑KYC, applying the same extension to state governments. It also clarified that Section 139AA of the Income‑Tax Act would continue to be governed by the earlier Binoy Viswanathan judgment. The order directed that the final hearing be scheduled for 17 January 2018 and that the interim arrangement remain in force pending the final decision.

Issues considered

The validity of making Aadhaar linkage mandatory for all government schemes and services before the Constitution Bench decides the matter.
Whether the interim orders limiting Aadhaar use to six schemes remain binding after the enactment of the Aadhaar Act, 2016.
The appropriate deadline for compliance with Aadhaar linkage for existing and new bank accounts and mobile e‑KYC.
The applicability of Section 139AA of the Income‑Tax Act in the context of Aadhaar linkage.

Legislation cited

Subjects

Aadhaarlinkage deadlinemandatory vs voluntaryfundamental rightsinterim orderbank accountse‑KYCConstitution Benchprivacy

Judgment

[2017] 10 S.C.R. 1000

A . JUSTICE K S PUTTASWAMY (RETD),
ANDANR
v.
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS
B (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 494 of2012)
DECEMBER 15, 2017
[DIPAK MISRA, CJI, A. K. SIKRI, A. M. KHANWILKAR,
DR. D. Y. CHANDRACHUD, ASHOK BHUSHAN, JJ.]
C Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies,
Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 - Aadhaar linkage - Deadline -
Extended - The deadline for Aadhaar linkage with all schemes of
its Ministries/Departments extended until 31" March 2018 - As
regards Aadhaar linkage with bank accounts, for existing bank
D accounts, the last date for the completion of the process extended
to 31'' March 2018 - As regards Aadhaar linkage with new bank
accounts, subject to submission of the details in regard to filing of
the application for an Aadhaar card and furnishing of the
application number to the account opening bank, the last date for
the completion of the process of Aadhaar linking of new bank
E accounts extended to 31" March 2018 - As reg<1rds Aadhaar based
E-KYC for mobile phone subscribers, the deadline extended to 31"
March 2018 - Consistent with the above directions, the extension
of the last date for Aadhaar linkage to 31" March 2018 shall apply,
besides the schemes of the Ministries/Departments of the Union
F government to all state governments in similar terms - The above
arrangement shall colltinue to operate pending the disposal of the
proceedings before the Constitution Bench.
Lokniti Foundation v. Union of India and Anotl~er
(2017) 7 sec 155 - referred to.

G Case Law Reference
(2011) 1 sec 155 referred to Para9
CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition (Civil) No.
494of2012.
Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India.
H
1000
JUSTICE K S PUTIASWAMY (RETD) v. UNION OF INDIA 1001

WITH A
T. C. (C) Nos. 151, 152, 1797, 1796 of2013, W. p, (C) Nos. 833,
829, 932 of2013, ContemptPetition(C) No. 144 of20l4, T. P.{C)Nos.
313, 312 of2014, SLP (Crl.).No. 2524 of2014, W. P. (C) Nos. 37, 220 of
2015, Contempt Petition (C) No. 674 of2015,T. P. (C) No. 921 of2015,
Contempt Petition (C) No. 470 of2015, Contempt Petition (C) No. 444, B
608 of2016, W. P. (C) No. 797 of2016, Contempt Petition (C) No. 844_
of 2017, W..
P. (C) No. 342, 372, 1058, 966, 1014, 1002, and 1056 of
20.17.
. .. -- .
K. K. Venugopal, Attorney (Jenera! for India, Jugal ~ishore Gilda,
Adv. Gen., Anil Grover, Shiv Mangal Sharma, AAGs, Shyam Divan, · c
.Gopal Subramanium, K. V. Vishwanathan, Sanjay R. Hegde, Ms.
· Meenakshi Arora, Arv ind Datar, Anand Grover, Sajan Poovayya, Jay ant
Bhushan, C. A. Sundaram, J. S. Attri, K.T.S. Tulsi, Rakesh Dwivedi, ·
Arvind Datar, Sr. Ad vs. Vipin Nair, P. B. Suresh, Udayitditya Banerjee,
S. Prasanna, Ms. Samiksha Godiyal, Ms. Samiksha Godiyal, Prithu Garg, ·
Abbay Pratap Singh, Govind Manoharan, Pratap Veriugopal, Prasanna . D
S., Ms. Samiksha Godiyal (for M/s. KJ. John 1}.nd Co.), Mayank
Aggarwal, Pradeep Kr. Aggarwal, Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, Jaideep Singh,
Gp. Capt. K.S. Bhati, T. Gopal, Amit Verma, Ms. Tanuja Patra, Dinesh
Kumar, Ms. Ritu Apurva, Prashant Bhushan, Omana Kuttan K.K.,
Govind Jee, Abhishek Atrey, Shadan Farasat, Ms. Vrinda Bhandari, · E
Prasanna, Ms. Jyoti Mendiratta, Anish Kumar Gupta, Avdhesh Kumar
.J Singh, R.K Rajwanshi, Chandra Shekhar Stiman, Ms. DeepShikha Bharti, . ·
Ms. Rita Gupta, Pranja1 Kishore, Ms.Archana Pathak Dave, TalhaAbdul
Rahman, Ankur Kashyap, Prateek Chadha, Jayavardhan Singh, Pawart
Bhushan, P.R. Kovilan Poonkuntran, Ms. Awasthi M. K., V. Vasudevan,
Mrs. Geetha Kovilan, Rahul Narayan, Apar Gupta, Shashwat Goel, F
Gautam Bhatia, Ms. Anriaya Ghose, Ms. Bhawna, Anand Sethi, Pranaya
Kumar Mohapatra, Mrs. Pragya Baghel, Prasanna S., Deepayan Manda!,
Anando Mukherjee, Ms. Stuti Vatsa, T. V. S. Raghavendra Sreyas, Mrs:
Gayatri Gulati Sreyas, N. Sai Vinod, Amit Meharia,.Ms. Tanishtha Singh,
Ms. Rishita (for Mis. Meharia & Company), Zoheb Hossain, Ankur G ·
Talwar, Ms. Shraddha Deshmukh, Mrs. Anil Katiyar, A. Gulati, ·
K. Dangwal, Piyush Goyal, Ms. Palesh Maheshwari; FahadKhan, Rajat
Nair; Mis. Lawyer S Knit & Co, Ms. TanishthaSingh, Ms. Rishita (fo,r ·
Mis .. Meharia & Company), Priyadarshi Banerjee, Prati Bhanu
S. Kaarola, Saransh Kumar, Saransh Jain, Madhavam Sharma,
H
1002 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2017] 10 S.C.R.

A Ramakrishna Meka. Pratik Rajopadhyay. E. C. Agrawal a, Mil ind Kumar.
M. ShoebAlam, Ms. Fauzia Shakil. Ujjwal Singh, Mojahid Karim Khan,
Dinkar Kalra, Ms. Vimla Sinha, Gopal Singh, Ritunrj Biswas, Ms. Rashmi
Singhania, Ketan Paul, Ms. Reeja Varghese, Chirayu Jain, Tushar
Bhushan, Mr. Kuldeep S. Parihar, H. S. Parihar, Bhagirath Patel, Mohit
D. Ram, S. Udaya Kumar Sagar, Ms. Bina Madhavan, Ms. Elizabeth .
B
Antony, Guntur Prabhakar, Tapesh Kumar Singh, Aditya Pratap Singh,
Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Ms. Savi ta Singh, Shrutunjay Bhardwaj, Shami
Agrawal, Ms. Veera Mahuli, Jayant Mohan, Sanjay Kapur, Ms. Megha
Kamwal. Ms. Mansi Kapur, Ms. Shubhra Kapur, Nishant Ramakantrao
Katneshwarkar, Ms. Deepa M. Kulkarni, Ms. Rohini Misra, Ranjan
C Mukherjee, K. N. Madhusoodhanan, Ms. Nitya Madhusoodhanan,
T. G. Narayanan Nair, V. G. Pragasam, S. Prabu Ramasubramanian,
S. Manuraj, Jagjit Singh Chhabra, Jatinder Kumar Bhatia, Ashutosh
Kumar Sharma;Abhinav Mukerji, Mishra Saurabh, Manish Vashishtha,
Satish Kumar, Ms. Noopur Singhal, Sanjay Kumar Visen,
D K. V. Vijayakumar, Ms. Maitreyee Mishra, Karan Bharihoke. Ms. Ruchi
Kohli, Shamit Mukherjee, Manoj K. Mishrn, Ms. Aruna Mathur, Avneesh
Arputham, Ms. AnuradhaArputham, Ms. Simran Jeet (for Mis. Arputham
Aruna And Co), Varinder Kumar Sharma, Chander Nand Jha, Fuzail
Ahmed Ayubbi, Ms. Ashima Mandia, Ibad Mushtaq, Ms Pallavi
Malhotra, Ms. Mandakini Singh, Ms. Priyanka Aggarwal, Siddhant
E Sharma, G. Bhargava, A. Garaz Khan, Navandeep Singh Matta. Kuber
Buuddh, MIS. Corporate Law Group, Aniruddha P. Mayee, Chi rag Jain,
Garvesh Kabra, Harish Pandey, R. Sudhinder,Ashok Mathur, Ms. Amrita
Sarkar, Lalit Mohapatra, Ms. Prachi Priyadarshini, Anip Sachthey,
Ms. Jesal Wahi, Ms. Sanskriti, Ms. Shodhika Sharma, Ms. Hemantika
Wahi, Ms. Anitha Shenoy, Dr. (Mrs. ) Vipin Gupta, Soumitra G. Chaudhuri,
F
Amit Sharma, Dipesh Sinha, Ms. Ayiala Imti, Nishe Rajen Shonker,
Ms. Anu K. Joy, Reegan. S. Bel, Subash, Nipun Saxena, Namit Saxena,
Ms. Pallavi Pratap, Devanshu Sajlan, Jogy Scaria, Wills Mathews, Rabin
Majumder, Mrs. Vanita Bhargava, Ajay Bhargava, Ms. Abhisaar Bairagi
(for MIS. Khaitan & Co.), Harsh Kaushik, K. R. Sasiprabhu, Koshy
G John, Ms. Anusha Natarajan, Mrs. Pragya Baghel, Bhupesh Narula,
K.V. Jagdishvaran, Mrs. G. ltidira, Dr. Lalit Bhasin, Ms. Nina Gupta,
Ms. Palak Chadha, Mudit Sharma, Leishangthem Roshmani Kh.,
Ms. Maibam Babina, Chanchal KumarGanguli,Advs. for the appearing
parties.
H
.JUSTICE K S PUTTASWAMY (RETD) v. UNION OF INDIA 1003

Intervenor-in-person. A
Applicant-in-person.
The Order of the Court was delivered by
DR. D. Y. CHANDRACHUD, J. I. We have heard submissions
. on interim relief. The prayer for interim relief at this stage is essentially B
based on the earlier orders of this Court dated 23 September 2013, 24
March 2014. 16 March 2015, 11 August 2015 and 15 October 2015 ..
The interim directions dated 15 October 2015 were issued by a
Constitution Bench. The primary submission of the petitioners is that in
terms of the interim order of the Constitution Bench: (i) Aadhaar Cards
could permissibly be utilized only for six schemes (two of them provided C
for in the order dated 11 August 2015 and four in the order dated 15
October 2015); (ii) the Union Government was directed to strictly follow
the earlier orders of this Court commencing from 23 September 2013;
and (iii) the Aadhaar card scheme was to be purely voluntary and could
not be made mandatory until the matter is finally decided by this Court. D
2. Mr Shyam Divan, learned senior counsel urged that since the
interim order dated 15 March 2015 governs the field it was the obligation
of the Union government to seek a variation of the interim directions
after the enactment of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and
Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016before m(1king it E
mandatory to uplink or provide details of the Unique Identification.
Number/Aadhaar card for all purposes.
3. Mr Gopal Subramanium, learned senior counsel while advancing
the same submission urged that the issue involves the paramountcy of
the Court and of the judicial process. In the submission of the learned F
counsel, the exercise of the judicial power in the form of the interim
order dated 15 October 2015 (and the earlier orders) was to insulate.
citizens against any form of compulsion, this being in aid of protecting
their fundamental rights.
4. Mr Arvind Datar, Mr KTS Tulsi, Mr Anand Grover, Mr KV G
Viswanathan. MsMinakshi Arora and Mr Sanjay Hegde, among other
learned counsel urged submissions on various facets in .support of the
prayer for interim relief. ·
5. On the other hand, Mr K K Venugopal, the learned Attorney
General for India urges that the interim directions were issued in the
• H
1004 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (2017] 10 S.C.R.

A absence of a legislative framework.After Parliament has enacted the
Aadhaar Act, 2016 (which came into force on 12 July 2016) the interim
orders w·ould, in his submission, not pose any impediment to enforcing
the provisions ofthe Jaw, duly enacted. Moreover, the reasonableness of
each notification would have to be justified by the department
concerned.The learned Attorney General has been supported in his
B
submissions by MrAryama Sundaram, learned senior counsel appearing·
on behalf of UIDAI and Mr Rakesh Dwivedi, learned senior counsel.
6. Having due regard to the importance of the issues which have
been raised in the case, which hasled to the judgment of nine Judges of
this Court on 24 August 2017 1, we are of the considered view that the
C resolution of the issues raised before the Court should proceed at the
earliest, after the Court reassembles in January 2018. This will ensure
clarity for citizens on the one hand and for the Union and the state
governments and the instrumentalities on the other hand.
7. Learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners
D as well as the leamec\ Attorney General for India and all the other counsel
supporting his s.ubmissions have agreed to the suggestion of the Court
that the final hearing of the case commence on I 7 January 2018. We
direct accordingly.
8. The matter which needs consideration in the meantime is the
E interim arrangement which should govern the field.
· 9. The learned Attorney General for India has stated that :
(i) The Union government has extended the deadline for Aadhaar
linkage with all schemes of itsMinistries/Departments until 31 March
F 2018;
(ii) As far as Aadhaar linkage with bank accounts is concerned,
for existing j:>ank account~. the last date for the completion of the process
may be.extended to 31March2018;
(iii) In so far as new bank accounts are concerned, while the last
G date for completing the process of Aadhaar linking may be extended
until 31 March 2018, persons desirous to open new accounts shall produce
proof to the bank pf an application having been submitted for obtaining
an Aadhaar card together with the application number which shall be
supplied to the account opening bank; and
1 (2017) IOSCC 1
H
JUSTICE KS PUTIASWAMY (RETD) v. UNION OF INDIA 1005
[DR. D. Y. CHANDRACHUD, J.]

(iv) As regards Aadhaar based E-KYC for mobile phone A
subscribers,as held by a Bench of two learned Judges of this Court by
its order dated 6 February 2017 in Lokniti Foundation v Union of
India and Another2, the process of completing the E-KYC process is
to be completed by 6 February 2018. The Union government informs .
the Court, that consistent with the extension of the deadline to 31 March B
2018 in other cases, this Court may consider passing appropriate orders.
10. In tem1s of (i) and (ii) above, we accept the statement of the
learned Attorney General for India and order accordingly.
. 11. In terms of (iii) above, subject to the submission of the details
in regard to the filing of an application for an Aadhaar card and the C
furnishing of the application number to the account opening bank, we
likewise extend the last date forthe completion of the process of Aadhaar
linking of new bank accounts to 31March2018.
12. In terms of (iv) above we extend the date for the completion
·of the E-KYC process in respect of mobile phone subscribers until 31 D
March 2018. ·
l 3. Consistent with the above directio.ns, we also direct that the
extension of the last date for Aadhar linkage to 31 March 2018 shall
~ apply, besides the schemes of the Ministries/Departments of the Union
·government to all state governments in si.milar terms.As a consequence E
of the extension of the deadline to 31 March 2018, it is ordered accordingly. '
14. We also clarify that in so far as the provisions of Section 139
AA of the Income _Tax Act, 1961 are concerned, the matter stands
· governed by the judgment of this Court in Binoy Visman v Union of
lndia 3• ·
F·
15. The above arrangement shall continue to operate pending the
disposal of the proceedings'before the Constitution Bench.
16. The Registry shall list the entire batch of connected cases for
final hearing on 17 January 2018.
G

J?evika Gujral Directions issued.

• 2 (2011) 1sec155
3 Writ Petition (C) No. 247 of 2017