The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce its crucial verdict Wednesday on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 law.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by chief justice Dipak Misra had on May 10 reserved the verdict on the matter after a marathon hearing that went on for 38 days, spanning four-and-half months.

As many as 31 petitions, including one by former High Court judge K S Puttaswamy, have been filed in the matter.

When the judgement was reserved by the court, Attorney General K K Venugopal had told the bench, which also comprised Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, that this matter had become the "second longest" one in terms of days of hearing after the historic Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.

The Kesavananda Bharati case, which was heard by a 13-judge bench, by a majority of 7:6 had propounded the doctrine of the 'Basic Structure and of the Constitution'. It had held that the amendments which may affect this structure were subject to judicial review.

A battery of senior lawyers, including Shyam Divan, Gopal Subramaniam, Kapil Sibal, P Chidambaram, Arvind Datar, K V Vishwanath, Anand Grover, Sajan Poovayya and a few others, had argued on behalf of the petitioners opposing the Aadhaar Scheme on various grounds.

CNBC-TV18 caught up with Medianama's editor Nikhil Pahwa and BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar to discuss their expectations on the issue.

(With inputs from PTI)

First Published:Sept 25, 2018 11:42 PM IST