Delhi HC seeks ministries’ response on plea seeking linking of property docs with Aadhaar

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted four weeks’ time to Centre and AAP government to respond to a plea demanding linking of movable and immovable property documents with Aadhaar.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula was hearing a plea filed by BJP leader and practising lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay filed in the year 2019.

The bench granted time to the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Law, Delhi government and UIDAI to file their responses to the plea.

The court has posted the matter for hearing next on September 5.

In April, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma for Centre said that the case brings out an important issue.

It is the petitioner’s case that linking of movable-immovable properties with the owner’s Aadhaar number would curb corruption, black money and benami transactions.

In light of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, the government is duty bound to take apposite steps to curb corruption and black money and seize benami properties, Upadhyay said.

“Black money holders would be forced to declare their unaudited movable and unmovable properties and it will take years to generate that amount of benami property again. Thus, in a long way it will help in putting an end to the black money generation.”

Talking about annual growth, Upadhyay has claimed that if the government made it mandatory to link property documents with Aadhaar, it would lead to an increment of two per cent.

“(Linking Aadhaar with property documents) 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,” the plea added.