The Supreme Court has extended all Aadhaar linking deadlines to March 31, 2018.
In its order dt. December 15, 2017, the court confirmed that this would apply to linking of PAN, bank accounts, mobile numbers, other financial services (like credit cards, stockbroking and mutual fund accounts), as well as welfare schemes run by the central and state governments, including subsidised LPG cylinders, farm loans and pension schemes.
On December 8, only the deadline to link Aadhaar with PAN had been extended to March 31, 2018 by the government.
Previously, the Aadhaar linking deadlines for all these services had been set as December 31, 2017, except mobile numbers. The government had asked telcos to initiate re-verification using Aadhaar based e-KYC procedures and ensure all mobile numbers were linked with Aadhaar by February 6, 2018, so the court was required to pass an order extending this deadline as well to March 31, 2018..
For those wanting to open a new bank account without Aadhaar, they have until “March 31, 2018 or six months from the date of commencement of account based relationship by the client, whichever is later,” to submit those details – however, in the meanwhile, they would need to provide the enrolment number as confirmation of having applied for Aadhaar.
There are other pending petitions filed earlier challenging the government’s decision to make Aadhaar mandatory, on the legality of enforcing Aadhaar in some cases and that it violates constitutional right to privacy, and the Supreme Court is expected to begin hearing those arguments on January 17, 2018.