There has been a country-wide gung-ho over the linking of Aadhaar, the 12-digit biometric ID issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), with various other services such as mobile number, bank account, PAN card.
Earlier last year, the Supreme Court of India ordered that it is not mandatory to link the Aadhaar card with telephone number, bank account while making it compulsory for several things including Personal Account Number (PAN) card and various other government-aided subsidies.
Earlier last year, the Supreme Court of India ordered that it is not mandatory to link the Aadhaar card with telephone number, bank account while making it compulsory for several things including Personal Account Number (PAN) card and various other government-aided subsidies.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has proposed to introduce Aadhaar-PAN interchangeability to ease the process of income tax return filing for all taxpayers who are not having a PAN card or have misplaced it. Following the passage of the Aadhaar amendment bill in the Parliament, the government keeps updating about the mandatory clauses with regard to usage of Aadhaar card. The government has said that there is not a mandatory requirement of linking the Aadhaar card for activation of RuPay cards given to all the account holders under the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana.
“As apprised by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), linking of Aadhaar is not mandatory for activation of RuPay cards,” the government said in a statement. With regard to linking of bank account with Aadhaar, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has apprised that “The Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019” has been passed by the Parliament, the government said, adding, The bill has the provision for allowing the use of Aadhaar authentication on the voluntary basis as acceptable Know Your Customer (KYC) document, by inserting Section 11A under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
Account-holders under Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) are provided with a RuPay Debit card, have an inbuilt accident insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh (Rs 2 lakh for PMJDY accounts opened after August 28, 2018).
The banks can demand an Aadhaar number from an individual who is desirous of receiving any benefit or subsidy under any scheme which are notified under section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (18 of 2016), as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI’s) Master Direction on KYC dated February 25, 2016 (as amended in May 2019).
