Consider the following statements:
- 1.Aadhaar metadata cannot be stored for more than three months.
- 2.State cannot enter into any contract with private corporations for sharing of Aadhaar data.
- 3.Aadhaar is mandatory for obtaining insurance products.
- 4.Aadhaar is mandatory for getting benefits funded out of the Consolidated Fund of India.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) 2 and 4 only
The question rests on the Supreme Court's Aadhaar judgment of 26 September 2018 (Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India). The Court fixed the limit for keeping authentication records at six months, not three; struck down the part of Section 57 that allowed Aadhaar use under a mere contract; and upheld Section 7, which lets governments require Aadhaar for benefits paid from the Consolidated Fund of India. Insurance is not such a benefit.
- ✗ 1. The Court said authentication records may be kept for six months at most and struck down the regulation that allowed archiving for five years. The limit is six months, not three.
- ✓ 2. The Court held that Section 57, so far as it let the State or any company use Aadhaar under 'any contract to this effect', was unconstitutional and void, because a contract is not a law.
- ✗ 3. No law made Aadhaar compulsory for buying insurance, and after the judgment private bodies could not demand it on the strength of a contract. Insurance is not a subsidy or benefit funded from the Consolidated Fund of India.
- ✓ 4. Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 lets the Centre or a State require Aadhaar authentication for any subsidy, benefit or service paid for from the Consolidated Fund of India; the Court upheld it.
Remember · Aadhaar judgment (2018): Section 7 (benefits from the Consolidated Fund) upheld; Aadhaar use under private contracts struck down; authentication records kept for six months at most.
Sources
- Supreme Court of India, Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, W.P. (C) 494 of 2012, judgment of 26 September 2018 ↗ “Authentication records are not to be kept beyond a period of six months, as stipulated in Regulation 27(1) of the Authentication Regulations. … we held that Section 57, to the extent, which permits use of Aadhaar by the State or any body corporate or person, in pursuant to any contract to this effect is unconstitutional and void.”
- The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, Section 7 (UIDAI) ↗ “for the purpose of establishing identity of an individual as a condition for receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service for which the expenditure is incurred from, or the receipt therefrom forms part of, the Consolidated Fund of India”
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2020, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·