By Balaji Narasimhan 03-Jul-2015
Backed by a database that can be hacked into and changed, the NJAC may not really fix the perceived wrongs in the Supreme Court collegium system.
My learned friend Shubhra Rishi recently wrote a piece on how IRCTC's move to make Aadhaar mandatory violates an SC order. My fear is that it can cause a lot more mischief--in fact, the very word "eminent" may one day be defined by the Aadhaar database.
Aadhaar may become a database of all Indians one day. Like all databases, this one can be hacked into and entries can be changed. This means that your very persona can be made to depend on this database.
Don't believe me? Let's say that two people are in the race for a plum post. If one of them (say, X) wants to play dirty, he can possibly, for a fee, get a hacker to alter the Aadhaar database to make it look like his opponent Y has been held up for drunken driving--for good measure, near a red light district (I’m assuming that, one day, all data about you will be linked to your Aadhaar number). This shadow of moral turpitude may be enough to disqualify the opponent and ensure victory for X.
Never mind that X's character is far lower than Y's, the database acts like a moral police and upholds his integrity for all to see.
Now consider how proliferation of the Aadhaar may reach out to the highest court of the land. If everybody starts making Aadhaar mandatory, every data point on every citizen will be available for hacking. One may state that, allegedly, the executive--which controls the database--may have the power tweak the database to suit its needs.
Alternatively, an outside hacker may be responsible for feeding fake information into the database. Some may claim the database can be protected from hacking--let me just say that a recent analysis by Vectra Networks of a quarter million endpoint devices in 40 enterprises found that every single corporate network showed evidence of a targeted intrusion. Aadhaar is going to be the fattest, juiciest database in India and every hacker worth his salt would want to hack it.
Now, in the context of the NJAC, consider Writ Petition (c) no.13 of 2015, which contains written submissions on behalf of the Union of India. Here, in this 73-page petition, the government states:
The two “eminent persons” on the Commission are independent members who are appointed by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of People or where there is no such Leader of Opposition, then, the Leader of the single largest Opposition Party in the House of the People.
Most noble--but a database will tell the PM, CJI and the LoP about the eminence of the person selected. While some details will be known to all and be beyond question, some character-damaging references in the Aadhaar database may disqualify and disgrace a truly eminent personality and allow a not-so-eminent person to be in a position to judge who should judge us.
And character is very much a part of eminence. The government in its above submission to the SC has stated:
As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “eminent” means “Distinguished in character or attainments, or by success in any walk of life”.
There is another danger--even without a database hack, what if an eminence were to deliberately cause a miscarriage of justice? Please consider the following scenario:
- Let us say one of the HC judges strikes down some data collection initiative.
- Many years later, the judge comes up for selection to the SC.
- One of the two eminences is a person who was closely associated with the project and lost badly.
- This eminence blocks the elevation of the judge to the SC, thereby robbing the highest court of the land--and the country--of an able judge.
I'm not saying that this will happen. I merely wish to point out that, backed by a database that anybody can hack into and change, the NJAC may not really fix perceived wrongs in the collegium system.
Aadhaar may have its uses, but it opens all of us to huge risk. Before promoting it, let's understand that, Aadhaar may give the state--or a hacker--the power to become an enemy of the people.
And when the state becomes the enemy of the people, it has the power to name anybody as an enemy of the state.