Arun Jaitley dubs Aadhaar verdict by Supreme Court as historic

Terming the Supreme Court verdict upholding the constitutional validity of Aadhaar scheme as historic, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "it is a historic judgement and concept of unique ID number has been accepted by judicial review."
 
Addressing media persons, Arun Jaitley said, "Everyone who has been criticizing Aadhaar, should understand that they cannot defy technology. Mainstream should accept changes, one can understand the fringe being against." 
 
He said, "There are now 122 crore people in India who have Aadhaar cards and our estimation is that by identifying beneficiaries of government schemes and ensuring that there are no fake or duplicate or non-existent beneficiaries, we are already saving Rs 90,000 crore every year." 

Attacking the Congress, the Finance Minister said, "Congress cuts a very sorry figure here, they introduced the idea but they did not know what to do with it," adding it is a step forward for the use of technology in governance. 
 
Earlier in a majority verdict by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri and A M Khanwilkar, the Supreme Court said the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions, including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.
 
The top court said Aadhaar serves a bigger public interest. Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than be the best, it said. 

The five-judge constitution bench held that while Aadhaar would remain mandatory for filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN), it would not be mandatory to link Aadhaar to bank accounts and telecom service providers cannot seek its linking of Aadhaar for mobile connections.

Further the apex court said that it would also not be mandatory for school admissions, as also for the examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical entrance and the University Grants Commission.

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The bench also struck down the national security exception under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act.