A five-judge Constitution bench will on Thursday hear pleas seeking a stay on the Centre’s direction to link government services with the Aadhaar system, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, and justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan will hear the petitions. A three-judge bench led by the chief justice said the Constitution bench will take up interlocutory applications at 2 pm on Thursday, PTI reported.
Last week, the government told the Supreme Court that it was willing to extend the deadline to compulsorily link Aadhaar to avail services to March 31. The government has extended the deadline for people to link their Permanent Account Number and bank accounts with the biometric identification system by three months.
The court is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the validity of Aadhaar based on privacy concerns. In a landmark ruling in August, the Supreme Court had declared privacy a fundamental right protected under Article 21 of the Constitution. This was seen as a major blow to the Centre’s push for Aadhaar.
With the privacy question out of the way, the court resumed hearing the petitions in the last week of November.
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