The Supreme Court today reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 law after a marathon hearing that went on for 38 days spanning four-and-half months.
A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, which had commenced the hearing on as many as 31 petitions, including one filed by former High Court judge K S Puttaswamy on January 17, was informed by Attorney General K K Venugopal that this matter has become the "second longest" one in terms of days of hearing after the historic Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.
"The Kesavananda Bharati case was heard for five months and this matter continued for four-and-half months. This is the second longest hearing of a case in history," Venugopal told the bench, which also comprised Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan.
The Kesavananda Bharati case, which was heard by a 13-judge bench, by a majority of 7:6 had propounded the doctrine of 'Basic Structure and of the Constitution' had held that the amendments which may affect this structure were subject to judicial review.
At the outset today, senior advocate Gopal Subramanium advanced the rejoinder submissions and said Aadhaar was not an "affirmative action" on the part of state to serve the people.
"Is the Act an enabler or is it in the guise of an enabler? The Act is not an instrumentality to deliver services. It is only a means of identification," he said.
"We have to read the true purpose of the law and whether the law seeks to achieve that purpose. Dignity and autonomy is not preserved by section 7 of the Aadhaar Act," he said.
Aadhaar Act did not have a proper purpose and "a claim to a proper purpose is not proper purpose", he said, adding that "Authentication is at the heart of the Act. Failure of authentication is a ground for denial of services."