Supreme Court: Aadhaar issue that has been lingering on for over 2 years before the Supreme Court, was mentioned before CJI Justice Dipak Misra’s court today wherein the CJI said that the interim hearing in the matter will also be heard by a Constitution bench but refused to fix any date for the same as of now.
Senior Advocate Shyam Divan brought to the Court’s notice that the matter was due to be heard in early November, and then in the last week of November, but it had not yet been listed. He said that if the main case could not be heard now, a bench should be constituted to hear a prayer for interim relief as the deadline for linking was 31st December, 2017
Attorney General KK Venugopal, on the other hand, said that the Srikrishna Committee was about to come out with a White Paper on data protection, which might involve recommendations to amend the Aadhaar Act, 2016 and hence, the Court should wait till the report is out. He suggested that the matter be heard at length in the month of January, 2018. Though Shyam Divan had no issue with the main matter being heard in January, he said that the 31st December deadline made the interim hearing urgent.
To this the Attorney General responded by saying that the Government was willing to extend the deadline on “the same terms and conditions” to 31st March, 2018. Shyam Divan, however, said that the “same terms and conditions” were not acceptable, and that the case needed to be heard.
Though the CJI said that not just the main matter but even the interim hearing must be done by a Constitution Bench, but when Shyam Divan asked for a fixed date, he simply said “we’ll see”.
Source: https://twitter.com/gautambhatia88
