New Delhi: An HR manager from Bangalore on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking a directive to the Aadhaar issuer to hand him the biometric data collected from his late father for his card.

Santosh Min B said he wanted the biometric details as they would be of no use to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) since his father was dead and there were chances of the data being misused.

Santosh, who works with an Ayurvedic clinic, told the apex court that his father died after he felt insulted while filling in the life certificate form at a provident fund office in Bangalore as authentication by biometrics failed because of his old age and a cataract surgery.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra gave Santosh two minutes to argue his case in person.

Santosh equated the Aadhaar scheme with an "undeclared emergency" and said: "This court may direct the UIDAI to hand over my dad's biometric data in a printed form, so that I can keep it for posterity."

Santosh said his father had "passed away on December 31, 2016, the dark day in our history, as on that day demonetisation ended".

The bench intervened to say: "We will not allow you to give any speech. If you want, you can argue on question of law, but you can't be allowed to give a speech.

Santosh said that he had received an unfinished letter his father, N. Bhanu Vikraman, had written to the Prime Minister in January this year. His father had written about the "harassment" a sick and elderly person faces while filling in life certificate forms at provident fund offices.

"In imposing Aadhaar, the government of the day wanted to keep track of every single paisa earned by the citizen and, on the other hand, political parties can receive funds anonymously through electoral bonds," Santosh said in his submission.

The apex court will hear the matter again on March 20.

The biometric details collected between 2010 and 2016 when the enabling Aadhaar law came into force was "illegal" and "invalid" and the data deserved to be destroyed, another petitioner's lawyer had told the court on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the top court had extended the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to various services till it delivered its verdict on the validity of the 12-digit biometric number and its enabling law. PTI