Munmun Kaur
Published On: January 14, 2022 at 12:55 IST
The Allahabad High Court, on January 13, agreed with the submission made by the Union Government that a review petition ought to be filed against the Supreme Court’s 2018 verdict in Justice KS Puttaswamy v Union of India, in which it was held that linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts was not mandatory.
The High Court was hearing the Bail plea of four accused in a case of cyber fraud based on the complaint filed by former Allahabad High Court judge, Justice Poonam Srivastava. She had alleged that some unknown people had withdrawn Rs 5 Lakhs from her bank account after she got a call from someone claiming to be a bank official and was tricked into giving her information.
Justice Shekhar Yadav, who was hearing the Bail plea, observed, “The Court agrees with the contention of Shri SP Singh that he should file a review petition in the Hon’ble Supreme Court regarding the non-essentiality of Aadhaar card so that the Aadhaar card should be linked with the account holders from the banks so that online bank fraud can be prevented.”
Additional Solicitor General and Senior Advocate SP Singh, who were appearing for Central government submitted that linking of Aadhaar with the bank accounts will make monitoring of fraudulent activities simpler.
Justice Yadav observed that as a result of the 2018 Supreme Court judgement, banks cannot pressurize Aadhaar card from the customers. He further observed that banks have the responsibility to keep the money of its customers safe and if in any case it is robbed by cyber criminals, the banks will have to take responsibility for the same.