The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Central government’s response on a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking an alternative Digital KYC (Know Your Customer) or e-KYC process for acid attack survivors with eye-disfigurement.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra noted that the petition raised important issues and decided to hear it in July.
Filed through Advocate Nitin Saluja, the PIL contended that one of the petitioners, who was a survivor with severe eye-disfigurement and facial damage, had in July 2023 approached the ICICI Bank to open a bank account.
However, she was deemed to be incapable of completing the Digital KYC/e-KYC process due to the bank’s insistence on completing the requirement of capturing a “live photograph” by blinking her eyes.
The petition submitted that the mandatory requirement of proving a customer’s ‘liveness’ under the RBI-regulated KYC process could only be fulfilled upon a customer blinking his/her eyes before the camera.
The bank later made an exception for the petitioner after the issue snowballed into a major controversy on social media.
The petition contended that many such survivors faced similar issues. It sought directions to the Centre for fresh guidelines on alternative methods or means to conduct the Digital KYC/e-KYC process for such acid-attack survivors.
It further said that a direction should be issued to all public and private establishments conducting Digital KYC/e-KYC process to effectively implement the guidelines that may be issued.
The PIL was drawn by Advocates Nimisha Menon, Yamuna Rizvi, Ishita Soni and Pranya Madan. It was settled by Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra.