Plea To Limit Aadhaar Enrolment Only For Children Below 6 : Supreme Court Asks Petitioner To Approach Authorities

The Supreme Court today disposed of a public interest litigation seeking that Aadhaar Cards be issued to citizens only upto the age of 6 years, and after the said ceiling limit, they be allowed to obtain an Aadhaar from the Sub-Divisional Magistrate/Tehsildar office.

A bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi opined that the issues raised were in legislative domain and ordered that the writ petition (filed in the nature of PIL) be treated as a representation to the respondent-authorities.

Briefly put, the PIL was filed by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay impleading the Union, the States/Union Territories and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). It sought a direction to the UIDAI to issue new Aadhaar cards only to children and framing of stringent guidelines for adolescents and adults, so as to prevent infiltrators from getting it and masquerading as Indian citizens.

Further, the petitioner claimed that due to a weak verification process, it was easy for infiltrators to obtain an Aadhaar card and then use it as a document to get Ration Card, Birth Certificate, Domicile Certificate and Driving License, etc., to the detriment of genuine citizens.

It was also his contention that under the prevalent system, Aadhaar could be made on the recommendation of a Village Pradhan or Municipal Councilor. This resulted in unentitled infiltrators obtaining an Aadhaar and availing subsidies and welfare benefits which are not meant for them.

During today's hearing, the petitioner reiterated these contentions, while pointing out that UIDAI has issued 144 crore Aadhaar cards thereby enrolling 99% of the population. He also claimed that 3 days back, 87000 fake documents were recovered from Mumbai alone.

In response, CJI Kant noted that all kinds of documents, including passport, law degrees, pharma degrees, etc. are susceptible to forgery. The bench ultimately asked him to raise his grievances before the Parliament/Government.

In the order, the bench recorded the petitioner's contentions thus: (i) there's statutory lacking in the Aadhaar framework (b) rights of citizens are being adversely impacted (c) Illegal immigration can lead to external aggression and internal disturbance and (d) including of non-citizens on electoral rolls compromises constitutional mandate.

At last, being of the view that most reliefs required legislative intervention, the petitioner was given liberty to bring all issues to the notice of States/UTs and other stakeholders.

Case Title: Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India and Ors., Diary No.21141/2026