The NDA government today told the Supreme Court that it will continue with the erstwhile UPA regime's flagship programme, the Aadhaar scheme.



"Government has decided to continue with the Aadhaar scheme," Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar informed a bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu.



The Solicitor General was apprising the bench, also comprising Justice A K Sikri, which earlier this month had asked him to apprise it of the Centre's stand on the matter.



The scheme has come under severe judicial criticism in the recent past, with even the apex court staying the government's decision to link Aadhaar with the grant of subsidy, including that on LPG cylinders.



Senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for a petitioner seeking quashing of the gazette notification of January 28, 2009 by the Planning Commission on the issue, submitted that the constitutional validity of the scheme should be examined now.



Subramaniam, appearing along with lawyer Aishwarya Bhati for Mathew Thomas, brought to the notice of the bench that Maharashtra government has linked the disbursal of salary of its employees through the Aadhaar scheme and the same was also applied for the disbursal of salary of the Bombay High Court judges.



As this submission was made, the Solicitor General said Maharashtra government and RBI were not party in the PIL.



Taking note of the submission, the bench impleaded both as party and sought their responses.



The bench further said a special bench, preferrably comprising judges who had inconclusively heard the matter in the first round of litigation during UPA regime, will be set up to hear this PIL.



The order was passed after a brief hearing during which the Solicitor General said the state governments might have insisted on the Aadhaar numbers, but the Centre had not.



He said he was not aware how many other state governments or public authorities had made the number compulsory even after the apex court order.



The court tagged the new petition to nine other public interest petitions pending in the court pertaining to Aadhaar.



The bench said since the previous bench had passed some interim order, all petitions will be heard after a month.



The PIL also sought a direction to the Centre and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to destroy all the information collected pursuant to the notification.



After the notification, the UIDAI, which was not a statutory body, had rolled out Unique ID (UID) scheme called "Aadhaar" for collection of personal data of Indian citizens, it claimed.



Various government bodies have also made availing of essential services, even withdrawal of salary, contingent upon possession of the Aadhaar card, the plea said.



It alleged that collection of data was being done by agencies whose "security credentials are not scrutinized thoroughly", while the Aadhaar card was being issued even to illegal migrants, enabling them to avail services meant exclusively for Indian citizens.



"The avowed objectives of UID scheme are itself farcical and the entire exercise is nothing but colossal waste of public money and exposes India's vulnerabilities," it said.



The plea maintained that Section 14-A of the Citizenship Act be declared "ultravires" as collection of personal data under the National Population Register was violative of Article 14 and Articles 21 of the Constitution.



It is not prescribed as to what extent private information of citizens would be required and this issue has been left to the discretion of executive, the plea said.



The petition said the act of establishment of UIDAI could not have been done by a mere approval of the "Empowered Group of Ministers" which is not even a body recognised under the Constitution.



The petition further said the objective of UID to have a "universal" database of all Indian residents cannot be achieved until the government encroaches upon the fundamental and core private rights, and therefore, UIDAI is required to be statutorily provided.



It said that despite the orders of apex court, Centre has not changed its enrollment process to sift out illegal immigrants. Various state governments were also making the enrolment into Aadhaar scheme a mandatory requirement by indirect methods like linking a person's attendance to UID.



It has also sought direction for delinking of all the biometric and demographic details linked to the bank accounts under the Aadhaar Scheme and under Section 14-A of the Citizenship Act.