Aadhaar card

As the challenge to compulsory Aadhaar identification to file IT returns was heard by the Supreme Court for the second day today (27 April), the mood among the anti-Aadhaar activists has been upbeat.

Chief Justice HL Dattu, who led the five-Judge Constitution Bench, had a surprise in store after hearing rival contentions for and against relaxing the 11 August interim order in order to exempt more schemes from its purview.

The composition of the Constitution Bench on Aadhaar, which begins its hearing from 2 pm tomorrow, had led to an uncertainty as to how a five-judge bench could decide the question whether the right to privacy is a fundamental right, when a similar question was decided by a eight-judge bench.

Opponents of the Aadhaar scheme have stepped up their campaign to expose instances of contempt of court in the Aadhaar case, which is pending for a resolution by the yet-to-be constituted Supreme Court’s Constitution bench.