Linking Aadhaar with land records: Delhi High Court seeks Centre's representation

The Delhi high court on Thursday sought the Centre’s representation on a plea seeking the linking of immovable and movable property documents with relevant Aadhaar numbers.

A bench of justices Rajiv Shakdher and Girish Kathpalia said that these are policy decisions and courts cannot ask the government to do this.

“How the courts can get into all this? These are policy decisions, how the courts can tell them to do this? Prima facie, what I don't understand is that these are the areas we don't have the complete picture or data, what are the various aspects that may emerge... Best is to let them treat it as a representation and let them decide,” Justice Shakdher said.

The representation shall be decided by the government within three months, the high court stated.

The HC was hearing a plea by lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. The petitioner said the state must take appropriate steps to curb corruption and seize “benami” properties amassed by illegal means to give a strong message that the government is determined to fight corruption and black money generation. 

“If the government links property with Aadhaar, it will lead to an increment of two per cent in annual growth. It will clean out the electoral process, which is dominated by black money and benami transactions and thrives on a cycle of large black investments...use of political strength to amass private wealth, all with disdain of the citizen,” said the petition.

“It also inflates the price of essential commodities as well as major assets like real estate and gold. These problems can be curbed up to a great extent by linking movable immovable properties with the owner's Aadhaar number,” the petition further said.

Earlier, the high court had granted time to the ministries of finance, law, housing and urban affairs and rural development to file their responses to the petition.