The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a public interest litigation that sought to link social media accounts with Aadhaar, Bar and Bench reported. The top court said the Madras High Court was hearing a similar petition.

“Everything does not need to come to the Supreme Court”, the court added.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Facebook to transfer cases being heard in the High Courts of Madras, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh in connection with the linking of social media profiles with Aadhaar. In its transfer petition, Facebook had said that the cases pending in the High Courts involved similar questions of law and should be heard by the Supreme Court to avoid conflicting judgements.

Facebook had said it was necessary to “ensure that users are afforded equal privacy protections across India, and to prevent the infeasible situation where the petitioner [Facebook]...is ordered to link Aadhaar information for users only in certain Indian states but not others”.

The Madras High Court had ordered adjournment after the plea to transfer the proceedings to the Supreme Court.

On September 13, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre if it intended to frame guidelines on linking social media profiles to Aadhaar. A bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose had said the matter needed to be heard at the earliest but did not decide whether the High Court or the Supreme Court should hear it.

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