Delhi High Court Asks For Clarity Over Aadhaar To Enrol Into Academic Bank of Credit
While hearing the petition of Premvir Singh, a Delhi University law student, regarding making Aadhaar ID the only ID to access the DigiLocker, which is mandatory to enrol in the Academic Bank of Credit, the Delhi High Court asked UGC and Central Government for their stand on this. The acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet P S Arora gave time to the counsel to take instructions from the authorities and apprise the court of the matter.
According to the petitioner, his concern is the UGC February 21, 2023, and UGC (Establishment and Operation of Academic Bank of Credits in Higher Education) Regulations, 2021. To enrol in the Academic Bank of Credit the only way is to log in through Digilocker, which does not accept any other ID to register. The petitioner’s advocate Sunil Dalal said that Aadhaar should be used where a person is benefitting or getting subsidiaries from the program.
The petitioner sought direction regarding opening the DigiLocker accounts with an option other than Aadhaar ID. The plea argues that the mandatory provision of Aadhaar impinges upon the petitioner’s fundamental right to education as an intrinsic part of the Right To Life under Article 21. It further says that seeding the Aadhaar data of students has already been barred by the Supreme Court which it held against making Aadhar mandatory for CBSE, NEET, JEE, and UGC.
Notably, the DigiLocker App is used to store online scanned documents and certificates with storage space of up to 1 GB.
The Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), following National Education Policy 2020, has been designed to support students” academic mobility by allowing them to study at any Higher Education Institution in the nation and providing a suitable “credit transfer” mechanism from one program to another, ultimately leading to the attainment of a Degree, Diploma, PG-diploma, etc.
In its early directive, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has asked to ensure that no children are denied or deprived of their due benefits or rights for want of Aadhaar.
