Decide Plea To Link Properties With Aadhaar Within Three Months: Delhi High Court To Centre, Delhi Govt

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Centre and the Delhi Government to decide within three months a public interest litigation seeking linking of property documents with Aadhaar by treating it as a representation.

A division bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher and Justice Girish Kathpalia disposed of the plea moved by BJP leader and Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, observing that it is a policy issue which has to be decided by the concerned authorities.

The court said that it will give liberty to the authorities to approach Upadhyay, in case any assistance is required.

“We cannot make a policy like this. We don't know how it ends, where it ends. It is the issue of dimensions,” the court told Upadhyay.

The bench added: “How does the court have to locus to tell them? It is a policy decision…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 this as a representation and let them decide.”

The court also said that it is not going to issue mandamus in “these kind of things” and will send the plea to the government to take appropriate decision.

“The problem is the empirical evidence, we have to do study and then see benefits of linking the two. There is a Benami Act in place, correct? There are consequences there…,” the court said.

It further remarked: “You have moved a lot of petitions which have progressed the cause of public but this is like…it will take another four years and it will only lie like this.”

The plea sought a direction on the Union of India and Delhi government to take steps to link movable and immovable property documents of citizens with their Aadhaar number to "curb corruption, black money and benami transaction".

In the plea, Upadhyay har submitted that the Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 of Constitution of India cannot be secured and that the “golden goals” set out in the Preamble cannot be achieved without curbing the corruption and benami transaction.

“Therefore, it is the duty of the State to take apposite steps to curb corruption and seize the benami properties,” the plea stated.

It was Upadhyay's case that linking property documents with Aadhaar number will help in curbing corruption as black money holders would be forced to declare their unaudited movable and immovable properties. 

The plea cited reports from various organisations such as Transparency International to show how benami transactions lead to rampant corruption and dismantling of the effective public distribution system.

"As on today, every citizen of our country have an Aadhaar number, asking them to link it to their property documents is a better option. The main advantage of this strategy is that the tax authorities will get details about 'legal owners' immediately," the plea stated.

It added that once the Aadhaar linkage happens, tax authorities can approach the “legal owners” and it can be treated as benami property if the “legal owners” are unaware or deny knowledge of the ownership.

Even if the legal owner takes onus and claims that it is his property, he needs to show the 'source of income' for buying that property, the plea added.

Case Title: Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India & Anr.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 1320