Linking Aadhaar with UAN not Mandatory Now

The Supreme Court delivered its judgement in favour of the constitutional validity of Aadhaar. It has touched various aspects of the Aadhaar Act and has clarified whether Aadhaar is mandatory for a specific process or not. As per the interpretation by experts, Aadhaar is not mandatory for EPF. Thus, you don’t have to link your Aadhaar with UAN (Universal Account Number). However, EPFO has not issued any notification in this regard.

The verdict clearly states that “benefits earned by an individual” cannot be covered in Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act.

The judgement says, “We also make it clear that a benefit which is earned by an individual cannot be covered under Section 7 of the Act, as it is the right of the individual to receive such benefit.”

The statement implies that employees are no longer required to link their PF account with Aadhaar. The employer is also not bound to validate the PF details using the Aadhaar card.

EPF cannot be treated as a subsidy or a welfare scheme. Thus, it is not mandatory to link Aadhaar with UAN from now onwards.

It is worth mentioning that only those services that receive money from the Consolidated Fund of India have to be linked with Aadhaar. EPF is not covered in the Consolidated Fund of India but is held separately under the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.

The Central Government’s move for linking Aadhaar with UAN was aimed at collecting data on jobs and improving the service delivery of EPF, EPS and EDLI more efficiently.

Also Read Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO): Schemes & Eligibility

Earlier, employers had to submit Aadhaar details of the employee to generate the UAN for new members. However, it was not possible to generate UAN in many cases where there were discrepancies in documents of employees.

Remitting PF in the account of employees was not possible for an employer due to inconsistency in the data.  The employers had to mandatorily get UAN generated for the employees otherwise they could be legally penalised.

In case the EPFO wants employees to link their UAN with Aadhaar, it will have to come up with fresh amendments in the EPF Act.

Know More About UAN Activation Process: How to Register for UAN