Aadhaar issue: Lawyer arguing case tells SC he wasn't allowed to open fixed deposit account in bank without Aadhaar number

NEW DELHI: A senior lawyer today told the Supreme Court that he was not allowed to open a fixed deposit account without the Aadhaar number, while challenging the UIDAI for maintaining that authentication of the 12 digit unique national identifier was not required for every transaction.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, who represents former HC judge Justice (retd) K.S. Puttaswamy who is opposed to Aadhaar, countered the submission of senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), that Aadhaar authentication was not required for all transactions.

"I do not have Aadhaar. I went to UCO bank branch in the Supreme Court for opening a fixed deposit account. I referred to the Supreme Court order. Still, they refused to open the account and insisted for Aadhaar," Divan told a five-judge constitution bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan.

The apex court, in its interim order, had said Aadhaar will not be required for availing various services like mobile and banking till it decides the petitions challenging the scheme.

Earlier, Dwivedi was labouring on the point that Aadhaar authentication was not required for every transaction and the fear of aggregation and collation of meta data was unfounded.

"For example, in case of PAN cards, it is once in a lifetime. For the sims, it is done only at the time of obtaining it. So, where is this multiplication of authentication from morning till evening coming from," Dwivedi said, adding, "realistically speaking, there is no trail of authentication from morning to evening.

No real time tracking is done" Divan, on his part, referred to the power point presentation of the UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey to drive home his point that authentication was needed every time if Aadhaar was used to withdraw money.