The Supreme Court has rejected the plea of the Union Government and several other public organisations to stay the interim order passed on the 11th of August, 2015 in the Aadhar matter. The Court has declined the request for making Aadhar mandatory except for availing LPG and PDS services. It has referred all applications seeking clarification or revocation of the order to a larger bench of the Supreme Court, which would also be presiding on the issue of privacy.

The larger bench is yet to be constituted, however the lawyer for the petitioner has asked the Chief Justice to constitute the bench at the earliest and the Chief Justice has asked the petitioners to present their case in court tomorrow.

Many schemes such as digilocker which will serve as an e-locker for official documents and the Online Registration System, an e-health-centric initiative by Deity require one to enter their Aadhar number for access; there has been a blatant disregard of the limited purpose prescribed by the order. The Court, earlier in the month asked the Centre to strictly comply with the order and reminded it that the mandatory nature of aadhar is applicable only to LPG and PDS schemes.

The reservation of a clarification and a stay on the application of aadhar is certainly going to pace up the setting up of a constitutional bench. The execution and continuation of several projects and social schemes now hinge on the decision of the Court. The Constitutional bench is now entrusted with deciding on the scope and utility of Aadhar, over and above determining the existence of privacy as a fundamental right.