The Supreme Court agreed to clarify on Monday (July 20, 2026) that the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) implementation of the Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) across India must be voluntary as per an Orissa High Court judgment of last year, which had directed a clear ‘opt-out/refusal option’ in the consent form.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant told petitioner-parents led by Abhishek Baxi, represented by senior advocate Indira Jaising and Paras Nath Singh, in open court that it would pass an order requiring the CBSE to comply with an Orissa High Court judgment of December 12, 2025. The High Court judgment in Rohit Anand Das versus State Of Odisha had directed the APAAR consent form to “include an opt out/refusal of consent option”.

“We will pass an order to the CBSE to give effect to the Orissa High Court judgment on a pan-India basis,” the Chief Justice addressed the petitioner side.

Chief Justice Kant assured that the court would direct the CBSE to also “suitably clarify” the APAAR ID scheme.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the APAAR scheme offered a layered storage of the educational trajectory of students solely for the “institutional use of the CBSE”.

“The Aadhaar judgment struck a balance between development and privacy. Here, the balance is between education and privacy. The CBSE is bound to use APAAR details only for institutional purpose,” Justice Bagchi observed orally.

The petition had sought the court to either strike the APAAR scheme on the ground of “coercive implementation” or put in place necessary safeguards to protect the privacy of students.

Ms. Jaising said APAAR scheme forced biometric-based digital identity on minors in educational contexts, violating children’s privacy, a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. “These are just children… Education is a right and should not become a burden for them,” the senior counsel said.

The government has projected the APAAR scheme as a mechanism to “accumulate and store students’ academic accomplishments, facilitating seamless transitions between institutions for the pursuit of further education”. The APAAR ID is linked to Aadhaar and is stored in the DigiLocker. The registry provides students with standardised data on their marksheets and institutional affiliation.

Also Read | APAAR ID: A must for the future, but questions loom over data privacy of minors

During the hearing the Chief Justice remarked that the “scheme seemed to be beneficial for students” and facilitated transfers from one school to another.

But the petitioners alleged that the APAAR scheme was not a neutral recordkeeping utility but an infrastructure of pervasive state monitoring of children’s educational trajectories, raising grave concerns of surveillance, profiling and function creep.

“I don’t want to be 50 and have people knowing that I failed my exams when I was 15… APAAR illustrates how centralised, lifelong academic identifiers can evolve into tools of surveillance and control when embedded in broader identity infrastructures,” Ms. Jaising said.

The Hindu’s Editorial | A voluntary mandate: On the APAAR student ID

She said the scheme also violated provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 protecting children and federalism principles. The APAAR scheme, lacking any legislative backing, was implemented through executive circulars and directives.

Justifying her submission for striking down the APAAR scheme, Ms. Jaising submitted that such a cradle-to-career, Aadhaar-locked identification architecture for students cannot be sustained under the Constitution.

“The architecture of APAAR, involving centralised storage and continuous updating of students’ personal and academic data across their lifespan, effectively operates as a State-run surveillance infrastructure in the education sector, enabling long-term tracking, profiling, and monitoring of children’s educational trajectories, and creating a permanent, cross-sector identifier that can be repurposed beyond education,” Ms. Jaising submitted.

Also Read | ‘Linking APAAR ID with Aadhaar a case of govt circumventing a judicial ruling through administrative means’ 

“Let us not doubt everything in the country with a suspicious eye,” Chief Justice Kant said.

But Ms. Jaising said an Aadhaar followed by an APAAR ID was mandatory for students to to enter Classes 10 and 12 and appear for their Board exams. Parents had no choice but to click on the consent button. Their children’s futures were at stake. Even granted that there was a legitimate aim behind APAAR, the objective had to be implemented proportionately, she said.

“Although formally announced as a voluntary initiative, the scheme is being enforced across states in a de facto mandatory manner, with the petitioners’ children and similarly placed students being compelled by educational institutions, acting under state directives, to furnish Aadhaar details for APAAR registration under threat of denial of admission, access to services, or institutional reprisals. The de facto mandate has now been formally mandated by CBSE for students in Classes 9 to 12 to appear in Board examinations from 2026 onwards,” the petition contended.