Wednesday's ruling by the top court means that individuals will not be required to mandatorily link their bank accounts with Aadhaar.

The top court also said that no private company or bank can ask for an individual’s Aadhaar.

The much-awaited verdict on the Aadhaar matter comes after a clutch of petitions challenged the Constitutional validity of the system on the grounds that it violates privacy. (Also read: Aadhaar is treated as unique, says Supreme Court)

The Aadhaar verdict was announced by a five-judge constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.K. Sikri, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan.

The bench had reserved the verdict after hearing the petitions for over 38 days starting January 17 this year.

The compulsory linking of the Aadhaar card with bank accounts, PAN card, welfare schemes and a host of other utilities violates the fundamental right to privacy, a spree of petitions had alleged challenging its validity.

The bench also said that private companies cannot access Aadhaar data. Seeking biometric details does not violate the right to privacy, said Justice Bhushan.

More than 21.08 crore PANs issued by the Income Tax Department have been linked with Aadhaar till Monday, news agency Press Trust of India cited reported citing official figures. The number of total issued PANs stands at over 41.02 crore.

Aadhaar is a unique 12-digit identification number issued to individuals by the Unique Identification Authority of India after storing their biometrics data. The UIDAI uses iris and fingerprint scans to obtain biometric data from an applicants and stores it in a database.