SRINAGAR The J&K High Court has sought a response from government within four weeks on a petition, seeking contempt proceedings against chief secretary of the state for linking Adhaar with biometric attendance in the state.
A division bench of the court asked the chief secretary to file the response on a petition filed by advocate Syed Musaib.
The court has time and again reiterated that procurement of Adhaar card cannot be made mandatory until apex court decided the issue finally.
Meanwhile it is clarified that there is no stay with regard to the biometric attendance system which can be installed in government offices but same should not be linked with Adhaar cards, the high court had said in its order on 11 September last year.
Advocate Musaib has submitted that Supreme Courts orders that Aadhaar card scheme is purely voluntary and not mandatory till the matter is finally decided by this court, this way or the other way.
Aadhar is a 12-digit unique identity number issued by the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India), a government of India agency which was established by the Planning Commission in 2009.
In November 2016, the High Court has quashed a government order, making Aadhar card mandatory for its employees for drawing various entitlements including the salary.
From the perusal of the Supreme Court order dated 15-10-2015, it is evident that matter was referred to the constitution bench for final hearing, making it clear that Aadhaar card scheme is voluntary and cannot be made mandatory till the matter is decided by the Supreme Court in one way or the other, the high court had said and asked the government to strictly follow the apex courts interim orders from 29 March 2013.
It is beyond doubt that government order issued cannot all be sustained as it is in violation of the interim orders passed by the Supreme Court, the division bench had said and quashed the government order (No. 35-F of 2016 dated 10-2-2016) with a liberty to the administration to issue a fresh order in compliance with the interim orders passed by the apex court relating to foods grains, cooking fuel such as kerosene and for the purpose of the LPG distribution scheme.
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