Both Nifty and Sensex end at record closing highs. Nifty ends at record closing high of 6583.5, up 90.30 points or 1.39 percent. Sensex ends at record closing of 22,055, up 300.16 points or 1.38 percent. About 1249 shares advanced, 1531 shares declined, and 162 shares were unchanged. Bank Nifty ends at 10-month closing high of 12,408. Bank Nifty led market rally, ends with gain of almost 3 percent.

Foreign institutional investors bought a net USD 495 million in Indian banks, while selling a net USD 791 million in pharmaceutical and biotechnology shares this month as of March 15, regulatory data shows. As a result, lenders have been one of the top performers this month, during a month in which the Nifty has hit a slew of record highs, including most recently on Monday. The NSE’s bank sub index up about 15 percent so far this month, outperforming the nearly 5 percent gain in the NSE.

In another setback to the Aadhaar programme, the Supreme Court has asked the government to withdraw orders making Aadhaar card mandatory. It further added that the UIDAI can’t share Aadhaar details with any agency without nod from the card holder. This issue has been going back and forth with the Supreme Court questioning the validity of the entire UIDAI programme because the UIDAI bill which was presented in the Rajya Sabha in 2010 went on to get cabinet approval but it was never passed by the Parliament and hence the Supreme Court (SC) has been questioning the legal sanctity – the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar card.

This is perhaps the reason why the government put its direct benefit transfer scheme as far as LPG cylinders were concerned on hold because the government was on a weak wicket as was very evident during the proceedings and that is why the LPG programme, the direct benefit transfer scheme was put on hold and now the SC has made it absolutely clear that the Aadhaar card cannot be made mandatory. Information received via Aadhaar card enrollment cannot be shared with any agency without the prior permission of the person who’s information is being shared.