Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee on Friday dragged the Centre to the Supreme courts on making linking of Aasdhar card mandatory to avail the social welfare benefits and for financial transactions.
Hearing the plea filed by Banerjee the Supreme Court today pulled down the Banerjee government questioning that how can a state government question an act passed by the parliament. The court said that a state cannot challenge a parliamentary act and has asked Banerjee to file a plea in her personal capacity and not the entire state government.
#Aadhaar: Tomorrow, Centre will challenge a law made by State? Sibal, you are more matured than us." AK Sikri J remarks
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) October 30, 2017
This counter attack of the Supreme Court comes as a blow to the West Bengal Chief Minister as she has been adamant on opposing the policies implemented by the Modi government in every possible way. During a TMC party meeting last Wednesday, Banerjee had strongly opposed the Central government’s policy of linking the Aadhar card to phone numbers and bacn accounts. She had angrily snapped that “Aadhaar number should not be linked with one’s mobile phone. I will not link my Aadhaar number with my mobile, let them [the government] cut my connection f they want to.”
Linking of the Adahr card has been a major issue recently as many people who still have not got the cards are facing many problems and are also unable to avail the social benefits made available by the government. While the court has taken up the hearing the Centre is yet to take a decision whether the date will be extended to 31 March to link the cards or not.
Though the Centre has informed the top court that it has extended the deadline for mandatory linking of the Aadhar cards, till 31 March 2018, for those who do not have the 12-digit biometric identification number. However, Attorney General K K Venugopal informed a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra that the dates have been extended only for those who do have Aadhar cards till now and are willing to enroll for it.
The West Bengal government has agreed to modify the petition and the bench has issued a notice to the Central government on a plea challenging linking of Aadhaar no and mobile number. The court has given four weeks time to the center to file their response.
Other than the West Bengal Chief Minister, several others have also filed a petition against the Centre regarding the linking of Aadhar cards to phone numbers and bank accounts. These petitions are still pending to be heard in the court.