Delhi High Court issues notice in plea to link property documents with Aadhaar

The Delhi High Court today issued notice in a petition seeking a direction to the Central Government and the Delhi Government to provide for linking of movable and immovable property documents with Aadhaar..Notice was issued by a Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar in a petition filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay..It is Upadhyay’s stance that linking of Aadhaar with property documents would curb corruption, black money and benami transactions..The petitioner has argued that the government is duty bound to take apposite steps to curb corruption and black money and seize benami properties in order to secure the goals set under Article 21 of the Constitution..It is stated that although the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act was passed in 1988 to tackle the problem, it has been “gathering dust without any action”..The petitioner submits that linking movable-immovable properties with the owner’s Aadhaar number could be an answer to curb the menace. The petition states,.“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.”.Listing the benefits of the system, Upadhyay further claims that if the government made it mandatory to link property documents with Aadhaar, it would lead to an increment of 2% in annual growth. It is added,.“(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 Court has directed the Central and State Governments to file their counter affidavits in the petition..Upadhyay was represented by Senior Advocate Vikas Singh. .The case will be heard next on October 15.