Two writ petitions challenging the latest amendment to the Income Tax Act, which makes the submission of a users Aadhaar number mandatory when filing income taxes, were heard on Wednesday and Thursday at the Supreme Court by a bench comprising of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan. The scheme, which links the Permanent Account Number to Aadhaar, is meant to be implemented from July 1st 2017 onwards, has come in for criticism, as a violation of the Supreme Court's orders, which deemed that Aadhaar should not be made mandatory, except for a few welfare services. The amendment in question is the introduction of Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. The first petition was filed by CPI Leader Binoy Viswam, who is represented by Senior Advocate Aravind Datar, and the second one was filed by Sudhir Vombatkere and Bezwada Wilson, who are represented by Senior Advocate Shyam Divan. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, Harish Salve, and others are representing for Union of India and UIDAI. Notes from the discussions in the Supreme Court below, based on press releases (this, this and this) from the Rethink Aadhaar campaign, and interspersed with a slightly edited/paraphrased version of lawyer Gautam Bhatia's* tweets. Wednesday, 26th April 2017 The bench began by stating that the Constitutional challenge to Aadhaar was yet to be heard. The counsels for the petitioners immediately said that arguments would be made without covering the Right to Privacy. The bench said that they had been thinking of tagging the matter. From Gautam Bhatia: In other…
