Why am I asked to verify Bank account, Demat account, PAN and various other services with Aadhaar?

As per the Supreme Court Judgement in the Aadhaar case (494 of 2012), residents are no longer required to mandatorily verify Bank account with Aadhaar. PAN Aadhaar linking is mandatory. A resident can voluntarily use his Aadhaar number in physical or electronic form by way of authentication or offline verification, or in such other form as may be specified by UIDAI. Mandatory Aadhaar authentication can be performed if the purpose is backed by law or it is in State interest. However, for availing subsidies, benefits, services beneficiaries are required to undergo mandatory Aadhaar authentication. when you link your bank account, demat account, mutual fund account, PAN, etc., with Aadhaar, you secure yourself because no one can impersonate you to avail these services. Often the fraudsters carry out transactions and transfer money from someone else’s account to their accounts and go untraced as they generally submit their fake identities to the bank while opening their accounts. They operate bank accounts in fictitious names/companies and run shell companies’ accounts to carry out money laundering or stash black money. Therefore, when all the bank accounts are verified with Aadhaar then it would not be possible for these unscrupulous elements to go untraced and banking as a whole would become more safe and secure as the identity of each bank account holders is established uniquely beyond doubt through eKYC. As of now 96 crore bank accounts out of total 110 crore accounts have been linked to Aadhaar.

At the same time, you also contribute to serve the vital national interests by making the system rid of bogus, fakes and duplicates who could misuse IDs to evade taxes, siphon off public money, etc. Through use of Aadhaar and other process improvements, the Government has been able to weed out more than 6 crore fakes, duplicates and ghosts beneficiaries and save more than Rs. 90,000 crore of public money. Also, ghost and shell entities and companies used to be created for tax evasion, money laundering, terror financing, etc. Verification of identity through Aadhaar has helped curb these practices. Similarly, use of Aadhaar has checked unscrupulous elements that used to resort to impersonation in various examination and tests for college admission and jobs, etc., and thereby denying the genuine candidates of their rightful dues. There are number of other areas where verification