APAAR Scheme: Supreme Court assures parents it will pass order requiring CBSE to provide opt-out, refusal option
The Supreme Court indicated it will direct the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to implement, on a pan-India basis, an Orissa High Court judgment requiring the APAAR ID consent form to include an explicit "opt-out/refusal of consent" option
The direction follows a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the APAAR (Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry) scheme, on grounds that it effectively compels students to obtain Aadhaar numbers
The underlying Orissa High Court ruling (Rohit Anand Das v. State of Odisha, December 2025) had held that the absence of an express opt-out clause undermined the scheme's claimed voluntary character
The Supreme Court's direction will extend this consent-form requirement beyond Odisha to apply uniformly across all CBSE-affiliated institutions nationally
Data privacy concerns raised in the case include the adequacy of consent under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the absence of a clear right to withdraw consent
Right to Privacy and Children — K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (Aadhaar Judgment, 2018)
The 2018 Supreme Court Constitution Bench judgment upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 but read down several provisions, including holding that children cannot be compelled to enrol for Aadhaar, since Aadhaar enrolment requires the consent of a parent/guardian and no child can be denied a benefit or service for want of an Aadhaar number. It further held that statutory bodies such as CBSE and UGC cannot mandate Aadhaar for examinations, and that Aadhaar is not compulsory for school admission since education for children aged 6–14 is a fundamental right under Article 21A, not a "service" or "subsidy."
Key Details
- Decided by a 5-judge Constitution Bench (2018) after the earlier 9-judge Bench in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) had first recognised the right to privacy as intrinsic to Article 21
- Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act (targeted delivery of subsidies/benefits/services) cannot be used to deny welfare to a child lacking an Aadhaar number
- Article 21A (inserted by the 86th Amendment Act, 2002) guarantees free and compulsory education to children aged 6–14 as a fundamental right, distinct from a "service"
- The 2018 judgment forms the constitutional backbone of the current challenge to APAAR's Aadhaar-linked design
The APAAR petition directly invokes the 2018 Puttaswamy Aadhaar ruling to argue that linking APAAR IDs to Aadhaar numbers for students amounts to indirect compulsion, which the Court had already held impermissible for children.
APAAR — Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry
APAAR is a Ministry of Education initiative under the "One Nation, One Student ID" component of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, launched in 2023, that assigns each student a unique 12-digit lifelong academic ID (linked to their Aadhaar number) to consolidate academic records, credits, and achievements from the pre-primary stage through higher education.
Key Details
- Administered by the Ministry of Education, built on the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) architecture under NEP 2020
- Enrolment requires parental/guardian consent through a prescribed consent form, since APAAR IDs are derived from Aadhaar numbers
- Government position: participation is voluntary, but in practice students without APAAR faced difficulties accessing exam-related and admission-related processes, prompting the legal challenge
- The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 requires "free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous" consent (Section 6) for processing personal data, including that of children (Section 9)
The consent-form dispute goes to the heart of whether APAAR's data collection meets the DPDP Act's consent standard — the Court's directive for an explicit opt-out is meant to make the scheme's voluntary character legally real rather than nominal.
DPDP Act, 2023 — Consent and Processing of Children's Data
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 is India's first comprehensive data protection law, governing the processing of digital personal data. Section 9 imposes special obligations for processing a child's (under-18) personal data, requiring verifiable parental consent and prohibiting tracking, behavioural monitoring, or targeted advertising directed at children.
Key Details
- Enacted 2023; operationalises the right to informational privacy recognised in the 2017 Puttaswamy judgment
- Section 6: consent must be free, specific, informed, unconditional, and unambiguous, with a clear affirmative act; must be as easy to withdraw as to give
- Section 9: additional safeguards for children's data, including verifiable parental/guardian consent
- Establishes the Data Protection Board of India for enforcement (rules and full enforcement have been phased in since notification)
The petitioners argue that a consent form lacking an explicit refusal/opt-out option fails the DPDP Act's "as easy to withdraw as to give" and "unambiguous" consent standards, especially given APAAR's collection of minors' data.
- Orissa High Court judgment: Rohit Anand Das & Anr. v. State of Odisha & Ors., decided December 2025
- Supreme Court petition: challenges constitutional validity of APAAR on Aadhaar-compulsion and privacy grounds
- APAAR launched: 2023, by the Ministry of Education, under NEP 2020's "One Nation, One Student ID" initiative
- APAAR ID: unique 12-digit lifelong academic identifier, linked to Aadhaar
- Key precedent cited: K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (Aadhaar case, 2018) — children cannot be compelled to obtain Aadhaar
- Article 21A: Right to Education for children aged 6–14, inserted by the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002
- Relevant statute: Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — Sections 6 (consent) and 9 (children's data)