The Supreme Court on Monday said that a hearing on the petitions challenging Aadhaar will have to wait till January even as the Centre was open to extend the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and other social welfare schemes till March 31, 2018.
With the Court having earlier fixed the Aadhaar matter for hearing in November, with the month almost over, the lawyers appearing in the petitions challenging the scheme sought urgent listing of the case. Senior advocate Shyam Divan argued that the matter must be heard on merits or else interim orders should be passed staying the ongoing linkage of Aadhaar with banks, SIM cards, etc.
The bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra stated that a Constitution Bench is currently in session and gave liberty to Divan to mention after the Bench gets over. It left it to the Constitution Bench to pass any interim orders.
Attorney General KK Venugopal said that in such an event, the Centre is open to extend the deadline of Aadhaar linkage till end of March 2018. He further advised the Court not to conduct a hearing in the case till the Committee on Data Protection comes out with its report by February end. Divan objected to the same.