Aadhaar mandatory for opening bank accounts [Read notification]

The Union government has made Aadhaar mandatory for opening bank accounts. Further, all existing bank account holders have to submit their Aadhaar details to the bank before December 31, 2017.

These conditions have been stipulated by amending the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005.

The relevant portions of the amending notification are extracted below:

“(b) in rule 9, for sub-rule (4) to sub-rule (9), the following sub-rules shall be substituted, namely:—

(4) Where the client is an individual, who is eligible to be enrolled for an Aadhaar number, he shall for the

purpose of sub-rule (1) submit to the reporting entity,—

(a) the Aadhaar number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India; and…

(17) (a) In case the client, eligible to be enrolled for Aadhaar and obtain a Permanent Account Number, referred to in sub-rules (4) to (9) of rule 9 does not submit the Aadhaar number or the Permanent Account Number at the time of commencement of an account based relationship with a reporting entity, the client shall submit the same within a period of six months from the date of the commencement of the account based relationship:

Provided that the clients, eligible to be enrolled for Aadhaar and obtain the Permanent Account Number, already having an account based relationship with reporting entities prior to date of this notification, the client shall submit the Aadhaar number and Permanent Account Number by 31st December, 2017.”

Last week, the Supreme Court had partially stayed the operation of Section 139AA of Income Tax Act but upheld its Constitutional validity with respect to Articles 14 and 19. However, it had not gone into the question of Article 21, leaving it to the Constitution Bench instead.

The case challenging validity of Aadhaar on the ground of infringement of right to privacy under Article 21 is still pending before the Supreme Court.

Read the notification below.