New Delhi, January 15: In a bid to weed out black money and bring unaccounted wealth to light, the government has made it mandatory to link Aadhaar with various services and welfare schemes. The government has already extended the deadlines for linking Aadhaar with existing bank accounts, permanent account number and welfare schemes to March 31, 2018. This means linking Aadhaar, the 12-digit unique identity number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) with various services is compulsory for all to enjoy uninterrupted services.

To speed up the process of linking Aadhaar and to avoid last minute hassle, banks, mobile operators and other financial services have started sending messages to customers to link their documents with Aadhaar at the earliest.  “The mandatory requirements of Aadhaar for Permanent Account Numbers (PAN), bank accounts, welfare programmes, and SIM cards have been challenged in the Supreme Court and no stay has been granted. Therefore, it is clear that the video is outdated because it does not reflect the latest legal position as on today (December 7, 2017),” the UIDAI said in a statement.

  1. Aadhaar Linking with PAN:

The deadline to link Aadhaar with PAN has been extended from December 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018. It has to be noted that the Income Tax Act was amended in March 2017 to make Aadhaar mandatory for PAN cards. On June 1, 2017, PML Rules have been amended to make Aadhaar mandatory for linking all bank accounts, insurance, pension, mutual funds and DMAT accounts.

In December 2017, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in December gave more time for taxpayers to link their Aadhaar with the permanent accountant numbers (PAN) by extending the earlier specified deadline.  “It has come to notice that some of the taxpayers have not yet completed the linking of PAN with Aadhaar. Therefore, to facilitate the process of linking, it has been decided to further extend the time for linking of Aadhaar with PAN till March 31, 2018,” CBDT said in its statement.

2. Aadhaar Linking with Bank account:

The government on December 13 extended the December 31 deadline for linking bank accounts to Aadhaar numbers by three months to March 31, 2018. This means the process of linking Aadhaar to your bank account should be done before March 31, 2018. Failure to link Aadhaar details with bank accounts will lead to deactivation of your active account from March 31, 2018.

3. Aadhaar linking with SIM card:

Linking of Aadhaar to mobile numbers has been mandated by the government to establish identity of mobile phone users in India. The government has made it mandatory to verify mobile number with Aadhaar for all existing customers before March 31, 2018.  As per current data, there are about 128 million mobile phone connections in the country and over 25% of SIM cards have been linked to Aadhaar so far.

The linking of Aadhaar with mobile numbers is being done as per the orders of Supreme Court passed in February 2017 in Lokniti foundation case. All SIM cards have to be verified with Aadhaar within a year from the date of judgement. It has to be noted that all unlinked phones to be deactivated after March 31, 2018.

4. Aadhaar Linking to insurance policies:

Insurance regulator IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India) has extended the time to link Aadhaar card number to insurance policies till March 31, 2018. Earlier, the deadline to link Aadhaar and PAN with insurance policies was December 31, 2017.  Much to the convenience of policy holders, LIC is offering both online and offline ways to link their policies with Aadhaar and PAN. In the offline facility, a policyholder has to fill up a form and submit the form along with requisite documents to an any LIC branch office.

5. Aadhaar linking with social schemes:

The government has also made Aadhaar mandatory for availing of various welfare benefits such as public distribution services (PDS), cooking gas LPG, MGNREGA Scheme, Government scholarships and pension plans.  According to a notification issued by the Ministry of Finance, if an individual is willing to open a post office account or invest in the NSC, PPF and KVP schemes, he/she will have to compulsorily produce his/her Aadhaar number. Those who do not have an Aadhaar card yet can quote the EID or enrolment identity number of their Aadhaar application.

To recall, the Supreme Court on October 30 had referred all Aadhaar cases to a five-judge Constitution bench. The court will now begin hearing final arguments on the legality of Aadhaar on January 17, 2018. A Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice (CJI) Dipak Misra passed the order on a batch of petitions seeking interim relief from mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts, mobile phone numbers and other services. After repeated attempts by the petitioners for an early hearing on the issue of mandatory Aadhaar linking, a bench of five judges comprising of CJI Misra, justices D.Y. Chandrachud, A.K. Sikri, A.M. Khanwilkar and Ashok Bhushan was constituted on December 13, 2017.  Attorney general K.K. Venugopal told the court that the government was willing to extend the deadline for linking Aadhaar with all its schemes to 31 March, and asked the court to pass an order regarding the deadline for mobile phones and new bank accounts.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 15, 2018 12:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).