Court sees no base in Aadhaar cards for lPG subsidy
Aadhaar card will not give the Centre its intended political gains. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court reiterated that without a legal basis, it was not willing to allow Aadhaar numbers to be made a mandatory criterion to avail benefit of subsidised lPG cylinders.
This came as a huge setback for the Centre which moved an application through the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on Tuesday seeking a waiver with regard to Direct Benefit Transfer for lPG (DBTl) under which the Government distributed subsidised gas cylinders only to persons having Aadhaar cards.
Refusing to grant the request, the Bench of Justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde said, “You cannot compel someone to come under the scheme. Moreover, what is the Act and Rules under which Aadhaar card is givenIJ”
This question haunted the Centre even on September 23 when the court, while hearing two separate PIls, held, “No person should suffer for not getting Aadhaar card in spite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory.”
Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati pressed the apex court to consider making an exception in case of DBTl as Rs 40,000 crore annual subsidy would be left idle and would not reach thousands of beneficiaries. He argued that getting Aadhaar card was voluntary and it would be mandatory only for persons who required the subsidy. But the Bench refused to fall into the trap. “How do you make it mandatory. We need to hear the matter finally. It is a double-edged problem.”
The oil companies moved a separate application to carve out an exception for DBTl. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) lN Rao said, “The scheme covers 76 per cent of citizens. We have shifted to the new system in 97 districts. By this scheme, we saved up to Rs 24 crore which earlier was lost due to multiplicity of persons claiming benefits.”
Solicitor General too pitched in support by claiming that the Aadhaar coverage was mandated by Supreme Court in a PIl for effective PDS network. He read an order where the SC directed States and Union Territories to link Aadhaar databank with computerisation of PDS to reach food grains to BPl beneficiaries.
But the entire force of Centre’s legal team failed to have an impact on the bench. It decided to hear the application filed by MOPNG, oil companies and Unique Identification Authority on October 22.
The petitioners who were represented by senior advocate Anil Divan and Shyam Divan complained of being kept in the dark as the Centre had mentioned the matter twice on previous days without giving them intimation.
The Bench asked the Centre to serve the applications on all petitioners and asked all parties to come prepared with arguments on the next date of hearing.