Aadhaar relief for NRIs, PIOs & OCIs; UIDAI says identity be sought only from those eligible

This means that government agencies can now exempt those belonging to these categories from furnishing Aadhaar identity for availing services as they are not eligible for enrolling for the unique ID. The circular said the UIDAI had received several representations from these sections, informing about difficulties faced by them as various authorities demanded Aadhaar from them in respect of various services/benefits etc like maintaining existing NRE and NRO bank accounts and appearance by students in different exams in India.

What made the situation tricky for NRIs, PIOs and OCIs is that the Act as it stands today, allows only “residents” of India to enroll for the unique identity. Section 3(1) of the Act says “every resident shall be entitled to obtain an Aadhaar number by submitting his demographic information and biometric information by undergoing the process of enrolment”. Who is a resident is further defined in Section 2(V) of the Act as referring to “an individual who has resided in India for a period or periods amounting in all to one hundred and eighty-two days or more in the twelve months immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment”.

The circular stated that the Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2017 and the Income Tax Act, 1961 “clearly stipulate that the linking of Bank Accounts and PAN respectively, is for those persons who are eligible to enrol for Aadhaar as per the Aadhaar Act, 2016”.

It referred to Section 7 of the Act which says that individuals who were not assigned Aadhaar numbers “shall be offered alternate and viable means of delivery of subsidy, benefit or service”.

“The Ministries/Departments are requested to issue appropriate directions to the State Governments/ implementing agencies concerned on the above and also give it wide publicity”, the circular added and left it to the “implementing agency” to “devise a mechanism to ascertain the genuineness of status of such NRIs/PIOs/OCIs”.

In a related development, the top court Friday allowed Dubai-based NRI Femin P Subramanyan to intervene in a batch of petitions already pending in the court challenging Constitutional validity of the Act and notifications issued under it. Subramanyan has claimed that the drive to link Aadhaar numbers to bank accounts was causing problems for NRIs like him. The petitioner’s counsel Shinoj K Narayanan later told The Indian Express that he was not aware of the notification and hence did not bring it to the court’s attention.