Leading up to the winter session of Parliament, India's controversial user identification project Aadhaar appears to have hit troubled waters: The West Bengal Assembly has passed a resolution asking for the Central government to delink Aadhaar from the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme. According to the Economic Times, the resolution was supported by both the ruling party and the opposition in West Bengal (which is rather unusual because they're bitter rivals). In a statement released on its website, the ruling political party, the Trinamool Congress, has said that on November 1st, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas sent an official notification to LPG dealerships, saying that LPG customers in three districts of Kolkata, Howrah and Coochbehar would need an Aadhaar card to avail of an LPG subsidy, and by February 1st 2014, all buyers of LPG would need an Aadhaar card to avail of the subsidy. As the Trinamool Congress rightly points out, this appears to violate the Supreme Court verdict, which stated that Aadhaar is voluntary, and not necessary to avail essential government services. The Indian government had tried to make Aadhaar mandatory, by linking essential services with it, and allowing government departments to make it mandatory for particular schemes. However, The Supreme Court of India passed an interim order that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for government services. The Centre, UIDAI and three oil PSUs — IOCL, BPCL and HPCL — had later on moved the Supreme Court seeking modification of its earlier order. The Supreme Court has now sought responses of all states…
