AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 4768 - Supreme Court to hear plea on keeping Aadhaar card for subsidy

In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.

On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.

In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.

In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.

In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.

"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi

Ram Krishnaswamy

Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Monday, October 7, 2013

4768 - Supreme Court to hear plea on keeping Aadhaar card for subsidy - Business Standard

IANS | New Delhi October 4, 2013 Last Updated at 19:02 IST

Supreme Court to hear plea on keeping Aadhaar card for subsidy

The Supreme Court will next week hear a plea by the petroleum and natural gas ministry seeking modification of its Sep 23 order so that Aadhaar card continues to be mandatory for the direct transfer of subsidy on cooking gas cylinders to domestic consumers.

A bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it would hear the ministry's plea Oct 8 after Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran mentioned the matter Friday morning.

The court had Sep 23 ruled that Aadhaar card was not mandatory as a proof of identity for getting the government benefits under several welfare schemes, including the National Food Security Act.

The apex court by its order had said that "no person should suffer for not getting the Adhaar card in spite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory".

The court's order had came in the course of the hearing of a PIL by Justice (retd.) K Puttaswamy seeking direction to restrain the government, the Planning Commission and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) from issuing Aadhaar cards in the wake of a Jan 1, 2009 decision of the government.

The petroleum secretary in an application Friday told the court that its Sep 23 order amounted to clamp down on the Direct Benefit Transfer for Liquefied Petroleum Gas Consumers (DBTL) scheme as it mandatorily requires the beneficiary to possess a Unique Identification for receiving subsidy

The direct subsidy scheme was launched June 1, 2013 and covers 54 districts in the country.

The petroleum secretary in his application said that under the scheme, the Aadhaar number is merely required to be produced to the cooking gas distributor and the consumers' bank so that the subsidy could be transferred directly into the bank account of the consumer.

The DBTL scheme was launched to ensure that the cooking gas consumers' entitlement was not diverted and to prevent leakage in the subsidy. The subsidy amounted to Rs.39,558 crore during 2012-13, the ministry told the apex court.

The ministry, in its application, said the subsidy per cylinder works out to be slightly more than Rs.555 and given the gap in the marker price and the subsidised price, there was a strong temptation and allurement to divert the domestic cooking gas for commercial purposes. Such a scenario not only defeats the propose of the policy but also causes loss to exchequer.

The average market price of domestic cooking gas cylinder is Rs.943.36 and the retail selling price is Rs.410.50, therefore the quantum of subsidy per cylinder works out to be Rs.555.55, the application said.

Urging the court to modify its Sep 23 order so that the ministry could mandatorily insist on Aadhar card for making subsidy payments to those entitled under the DBTL scheme, the application said that it would help in eliminating the diversion of subsidized cylinders into the black market.