Delhi HC asks Centre to consider as representation plea seeking linking of property docus with Aadhaar

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the central government to consider as representation a plea demanding the linking of movable and immovable property documents with Aadhaar.

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

However, it said that the representation shall be decided by the government within three months.

The plea was filed by BJP leader and practising lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay in 2019. It is his case that linking of movable-immovable properties with the owner’s Aadhaar number would curb corruption, black money and benami transactions.

“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," the court said.

The bench further said that the best way would be to let them treat it as a representation and let them decide.

Earlier, the court had granted four weeks's time to Centre and AAP government to respond to the plea.

The bench had granted time to the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Law, Delhi government and UIDAI to file their responses to the plea.

In April, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma for Centre had said that the case brings out an important issue.

In light of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, the government is duty bound to take apposite steps to curb corruption and black money and seize benami properties, Upadhyay has said.

“Black money holders would be forced to declare their unaudited movable and unmovable properties and it will take years to generate that amount of benami property again. Thus, in a long way it will help in putting an end to the black money generation.”

Talking about annual growth, Upadhyay has claimed that if the government made it mandatory to link property documents with Aadhaar, it would lead to an increment of two per cent.

“(Linking Aadhaar with property documents) will clean our electoral process, which is dominated by black money and benami transaction and thrives on a cycle of large black investments, capture of power through foul means, use of political strength to amass private wealth, all with disdain,” the plea added.