Extention issued for response on plea on Aadhaar-property linking

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted four more weeks to the Delhi government and the Home Ministry to clear their stand on a plea in relation to the linking of Aadhaar with property documents.

A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramoniam Prasad also issued notice to the Ministries of Law, Finance, Rural Development, and Housing and Urban Development in the matter.

The matter will be further heard on November 30.

The court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking direction to link movable-immovable properties with the owner's Aadhaar number.

Upadhyay contended that linking property with Aadhaar will lead to an "increment of two per cent in annual growth".

"It 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 of the citizen," the plea said.

It claimed there may be some inconvenience for a short period and political leaders who have fostered corruption and have benami property may focus on the distress to common man, but no honest citizen will lose his savings and nothing will get confiscated.

"In several addresses to the nation (Mann Ki Baat), the Prime Minister has repeated his plans to root out black money by cracking down on benami properties. This is because a major part of black money is held in the form of benami properties (gold and cash are other forms). Demonetisation, announced on November 8, 2016, was fight against black money held in form of cash," it added.