Thu, Oct 08 2015. 09 31 AM IST
SC bench declines to modify 11 August interim order restricting use of Aadhaar to identify beneficiaries of PDS and LPG subsidy
New Delhi: In a major blow to the government, a Supreme Court bench on Wednesday declined to modify its 11 August interim order restricting the use of Aadhaar unique identity numbers to identify beneficiaries of the public distribution system (PDS) and subsidies on cooking gas and kerosene.
The matter will now be heard by a constitution bench, which is likely to be formed on Thursday.
The ruling will have a bearing on important digital initiatives of the government such as biometric attendance, Jan Dhan Yojana, digital certificates, pension payments and the proposed introduction of payments banks. All the initiatives critically depend on the Aadhaar unique identity number.
The government and several other petitioners, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), had pleaded for a relaxation of the interim order to allow the voluntary use of Aadhaar as a form of e-identity.
The stay will affect beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (91.7 million), pensioners (27.1 million) and recipients of scholarships (25.7 million), among others, according to data from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
This is apart from expected beneficiaries of in-principle payments bank licence winners that include Airtel M Commerce Services Ltd (from the stable of Bharti Airtel Ltd, which had a customer base of 231.6 million as of July) and Vodafone m-pesa Ltd (part of Vodafone India Ltd which had a customer base of 185.4 million as of July).
The licensees also include the Department of Posts, which has 155,015 post offices across the country, of which 139,144 are in rural areas. The sheer reach of these entities is unrivalled.
The 11 August interim order by the three-judge bench comprising justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde and C. Nagappan said the use of Aadhaar should be restricted to identifying beneficiaries of the PDS and subsidies on cooking gas and kerosene.
“Even for the PDS, kerosene and LPG (cooking gas) distribution system, the card will not be mandatory,” the court order said.
Nagrik Chetna Manch, a Pune-based NGO and one of the petitioners opposing the use of Aadhaar on grounds that its use in the delivery of government services could compromise the privacy of the unique ID holders, said it would continue to resist the use of Aadhaar.
“The government cannot defend violation of privacy in the name of crores already spent on the project,” said S.C.N. Jatar, president of the organization.
Mint reported on 1 October that the Union government and various regulatory agencies including RBI, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the income-tax department, would launch a concerted effort before the Supreme court to allow the use of Aadhaar numbers for various state-sponsored schemes. The states of Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharahtra, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan have also joined the plea to seek a modification.
On Tuesday, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi asked the court: “Should an interim order stop the benefit from reaching 50 crore people?”
In light of the setback, the government needs to take another look at its strategy, a government official said on condition of anonymity.
“There is something wrong. The way it (government) has approached the case before and after the 11 August interim order was not appropriate in achieving the objective,” the official said.
A reference on whether the Aadhaar scheme would be a violation of a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy was on 11 August referred to a larger constitution bench for its consideration. The bench is yet to be constituted by Chief Justice of India (CJI) H.L Dattu.
The government’s applications seeking a clarification and modification of the interim order will be also considered by the same constitution bench.
The petitioners in the case against Aadhaar on privacy grounds, including the Nagrik Chetna Manch, on Wednesday approached the CJI to constitute a larger bench. The attorney general will make a similar request to the CJI, said a second government official, who belongs to a department that sought a review of the interim order. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The court did not go into the merit of the applications. But we are happy that our plea was not rejected, which in a way means that our case is not devoid of merit and we will not have to file fresh applications for hearing by the constitutional bench,” said the second government official.
As of now, 920 million Indian citizens have been allotted Aadhaar numbers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on 30 September, soon after his return from the US, called a meeting of state secretaries as well as other stakeholders in the Aadhaar unique identity number programme and asked them to push ahead with their enrolment initiative.
Modi told the states to complete the enrolment by December and that he would personally review the progress every month. The Supreme Court’s interim order did not stop UIDAI from fresh enrolments, but asked it to widely publicize through media that “it is not mandatory for a citizen to obtain an Aadhaar card”
