AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 5363 - Supreme Court demolishes Aadhaar card: Judges rule card NOT mandatory for government subsidies

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

Thursday, March 27, 2014

5363 - Supreme Court demolishes Aadhaar card: Judges rule card NOT mandatory for government subsidies - Daily Mail UK

Supreme Court demolishes Aadhaar card: Judges rule card NOT mandatory for government subsidies

By HARISH V NAIR

PUBLISHED: 00:01 GMT, 25 March 2014 | UPDATED: 00:01 GMT, 25 March 2014

Former Infosys honcho Nandan Nilekani may be hoping for a great political start, but the future of his pet project, Aadhaar, which cost Rs 3,494 crore till September last year, looks quite bleak

This is one card game the government looks set to lose.

The highest court in the land on Monday pulled out the foundations from under the United Progressive Alliance government's flagship Aadhaar scheme, directing the Centre to immediately withdraw instructions that make the cards mandatory for availing government schemes or subsidies.

No less significant was the fact that the court directed the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) not to share biometric or other personal information with anyone without the permission of the cardholder.

"I received a lot of letters which say Aadhaar card is mandatory despite court orders. One person in a letter said his marriage is not registered because of the lack of Aadhaar card, (others) say they can't get their properties registered. We had already passed orders saying no one should suffer for not having Aadhaar card," a bench headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan said.

"If there are any instructions that Aadhaar is mandatory, it should be withdrawn immediately," the bench said.

Strongly defending the card, the Centre recently said it was essential for good governance, transparent implementation of government programmes and ensuring that benefits reach only eligible persons.

It pointed out to the court that it had enrolled 53 crore citizens till September 30, 2013 after spending Rs 3,494 crore, and it had to be ensured that this huge amount did not go down the drain.

In an interim order issued in September 2013, the apex court had said the Aadhaar card could not be mandatory for availing of government services and that nobody should be deprived of such facilities for want of the card.

Strongly backing the card's "mandatory" nature, UIDAI had claimed that PSU oil companies detected around 45,000 duplicate connections on the basis of Aadhaar numbers, and blocking these would save the exchequer around Rs 23 crore annually.

It said the court's interim order had "very serious implication" for implementing various welfare schemes.

Though it insisted that the card should be made a must for subsidies, UIDAI described the allegations of rampant denial of services as completely baseless.

Ironically, Monday's order did not come during the hearing of PILs challenging the constitutional validity of the cards, but in a related case where UIDAI challenged an order of the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court directing the sharing of data collected for issuing Aadhaar card with CBI for solving a rape case.

The bench said biometric or any other data should not be shared with any authorities unless the accused gives consent in writing. The CBI had sought the database, including biometrics of persons from Goa, so that the information could be compared with that obtained from the crime scene for investigating the rape of a minor girl at a school in Vasco.

UIDAI had contended the order would set a bad precedent and open the floodgates for similar requests by investigative agencies and police for information, including biometric data, for the purpose of investigations.

It said biometric data cannot be shared without the consent of the citizen as per its current datasharing policy. In its plea, UIDAI said more than 60 crore residents have enrolled themselves for Aadhaar by providing their demographic and biometric information for civilian application only and sharing the data would endanger the fundamental rights of citizens.

Building a system that can search latent fingerprints, quite like criminal database searches, is not within the constitutional and legal mandate and scope of UIDAI and fundamentally against the core reason residents have provided their data voluntarily to UIDAI, the petition said.

The right to privacy is one of the basic rights of an individual and UIDAI is committed to protect this aspect, it said.

Staying the high court order, the bench tagged the case with PILs filed by retired Karnataka High Court judge K. Puttaswamy and social activist Aruna Roy against making the cards mandatory for accessing government schemes and subsidies.

They also argued that the manner in which information is extracted violates and transgresses individual rights of citizens, including that to privacy.