'Aadhaar rightly categorised as Money Bill', Centre tells SC

The provisions of the Constitution were adhered to while categorising Aadhaar as a money bill, the Centre told the Supreme Court. Attorney General, K K Venugopal said that the provisions under Article 110 of the Constitution were taken into account to categorise Aadhaar as a Money Bill which had enabled the government to avoid the legislation being scuttled in the Rajya Sabha where it lacked a majority.

He also said that the government was to spend Rs 55,000 crore from the Consolidated Fund of India for providing subsidies, benefits and services to a targeted section of the population. Hence the Bill was rightly categorised as a Money Bill, he also added.

He further said that a law cannot be complete without providing for ancillary issues to achieve the objective behind spending huge sums from the consolidated fund. The UIDAI in its submission said that linking Aadhaar with PAN helped authorities detect Rs 33,000 crore, which would have otherwise gone down as an undisclosed amount.