Centre quotes Rajiv Gandhi in SC to defend Aadhaar scheme

The bench is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and its 2016 enabling law.

Venugopal said Aadhaar has effectively taken care of the issue of ghost beneficiaries of welfare schemes, besides fake cards for ration, BPL quota and PAN. It becomes the Government’s duty in a welfare state to come out with various schemes which not only take care of immediate needs of the deprived class but also ensure that adequate opportunities are provided to such persons to enable them make their lives better, economically and socially, Venugopal said.

However, for various reasons including corruption, actual benefit does not reach those who are supposed to receive such benefits he said. “One of the main reasons is failure to identify these persons for lack of means by which identity could be established of such genuine needy class. Resultantly, lots of ghosts and duplicate beneficiaries are able to take undue and impermissible benefits,” he said.