Mandatory Aadhaar Card for Govt Scholarships Violates SC Order

Mandatory Aadhaar Card for Govt Scholarships Violates SC Order is a Hindustan Times report by Neelam Pandey and Aloke Tikku published on 15 July 2016. The article documents the human resource development ministry’s directive requiring Aadhaar for government scholarships and fellowships, a move that appeared to contravene the Supreme Court’s August 2015 order restricting Aadhaar use to food grain and cooking fuel distribution, prompting threats of contempt proceedings.

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Article Details

📰 Published in:: Hindustan Times
📅 Date:: 15 July 2016
👤 Authors:: Neelam Pandey, Aloke Tikku
📄 Type:: News Report
📰 Newspaper Link:: Read Online

Full Text

There seems to be no end to the government's legal troubles.

The human resource development (HRD) ministry has made Aadhaar mandatory for government scholarship and fellowship from this academic year, a move that violates the Supreme Court's order.

Under this decision, the government will transfer the funds to the students' bank accounts only after they submit their Aadhaar number.

The court had last August barred the government from using Aadhaar for any purpose other than distributing food grain and cooking fuel such as kerosene and LPG. The SC had gone further to rule that production of Aadhaar would not be a condition for obtaining any benefits due to a citizen.

It was this SC order that prompted the government to push the Aadhaar law through Parliament to ensure that the court's restriction did not come in the way of expanding the direct benefit transfer project.

The law – that was passed by Parliament – gave the government powers to make Aadhaar mandatory for receiving any benefit, facility or service that involved any expenditure from the public exchequer.

But most provisions of the Aadhaar law have not come into force yet.

This week, it notified provisions that enabled it to appoint the chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) that issues the 12-digit unique number and set up offices in cities outside Delhi.

"This appears to be contempt of court," said Sunil Abraham, head of the Bengaluru-headquartered advocacy group, Centre for Internet and Society.

Thomas Mathew, one of the petitioners in the case pending before the Supreme Court, agreed. "I am going to move a contempt petition against the HRD ministry and UGC," Mathew said, pointing that oil companies were also forcing people to get Aadhaar.

The UGC directive to central universities sets July-end as the deadline for scholars at central universities to get their Aadhaar number. Many scholars who did not have an Aadhaar number said the fellowship was an important source of income for them to get by.

Context and Background

This report captured a moment of acute legal tension in the Aadhaar programme’s expansion. In August 2015, the Supreme Court had issued an interim order explicitly restricting Aadhaar’s use to the Public Distribution System and LPG subsidies, whilst ruling that production of the biometric identifier could not be made a condition for obtaining any citizen entitlements. The order came in response to constitutional challenges questioning whether the programme violated privacy rights and whether the government could mandate enrolment without legislative authorisation.

The government’s response was to push the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act through Parliament in March 2016 as a Money Bill, a procedure that bypassed the Rajya Sabha’s full scrutiny. The Act granted statutory backing for Aadhaar and authorised its use for “any benefit, facility or service” funded from the Consolidated Fund of India. However, the government had to notify specific provisions for them to come into force, and by July 2016, most sections remained unactivated.

The HRD ministry’s directive requiring Aadhaar for scholarships and fellowships thus operated in a legal grey zone. The Supreme Court’s 2015 order remained in effect since it was an interim measure in an ongoing constitutional challenge, yet the government appeared to rely on the newly passed Aadhaar Act—whose relevant provisions had not yet been notified—as justification for expanding mandatory use. The University Grants Commission set a July 2016 deadline for scholars to obtain Aadhaar numbers, threatening to withhold fellowships that many students depended upon for living expenses.

The legal jeopardy was not merely theoretical. Contempt of court proceedings could be initiated when government actions appeared to defy explicit judicial orders. The fact that petitioners in the ongoing Aadhaar case were considering such proceedings indicated the seriousness with which they viewed the ministry’s directive. The article also noted that oil companies were similarly insisting on Aadhaar for services, suggesting a pattern of agencies expanding mandatory use despite judicial restrictions.

The situation illustrated a recurring dynamic in India’s Aadhaar litigation: the government’s determination to expand the programme’s scope whilst constitutional challenges remained unresolved, and the difficulties citizens faced when caught between judicial orders protecting their rights and executive actions linking essential services to biometric enrolment. The Supreme Court would eventually hear the substantive constitutional challenge in 2018, culminating in a judgment that upheld Aadhaar’s validity whilst placing significant restrictions on its mandatory use beyond subsidies and tax administration.