The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to immediately withdraw the instruction, if any, issued by it for making Aadhaar card mandatory for citizens to avail themselves of Government services.

“If there are any instructions that Aadhaar is mandatory, it should be withdrawn immediately,” a Bench of Justices BS Chauhan and J Chelameswar said while staying the order of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court directing sharing of data collected for issuing Aadhaar card to citizens with CBI for solving a rape case.

The Bench said biometric or any other data should not be shared with any authorities unless the accused gives consent in writing.

The probe agency had sought the data base, including biometrics of persons from Goa, so that those could be compared with the ones obtained from the crime scene for the purpose of investigating rape of a minor girl in a school premises in Vasco.

The apex court had in its September 2013 interim order said Aadhaar card be not made mandatory for people for availing themselves of Government services and nobody should be deprived of such facilities for want of the card.

The Bench passed the order on a petition filed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) challenging the High Court order which asked it to consider sharing biometric data collected from people with CBI in order to help the investigating agency solve a rape case in Vasco.

The High Court had in an February 26 interim order directed the Director-General, Central Forensic and Scientific Laboratory (CFSL), New Delhi, to appoint an expert to ascertain if its data base has the technological capability for matching the chance fingerprints electronically obtained.

Published on March 24, 2014