Citing the Supreme Court order that the government cannot deny service to anyone who does not possess Aadhaar as it is voluntary, the PIL seeks directions for making Aadhar non- compulsory for Salaries, Pensions, honorarium, LPG subsidies and other such beneficial entitlements.
D A RASHID
Srinagar, Publish Date: Feb 13 2016 11:08PM | Updated Date: Feb 13 2016 11:08PM
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A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in Jammu and Kashmir High Court challenging the state government’s move making it mandatory for its citizens including employees to obtain Aadhaar card, in contravention of the Supreme Court ruling.
Citing the Supreme Court order that the government cannot deny service to anyone who does not possess Aadhaar as it is voluntary, the PIL seeks directions for making Aadhar non- compulsory for Salaries, Pensions, honorarium, LPG subsidies and other such beneficial entitlements.
“The Government order no: 35-F of 2016, dated 10.02.2016 is directly in violation and contravention of the various direction issued by Supreme Court declaring that Aadhar is a voluntary Scheme and should not be made mandatory or compulsory, ” the petitioners plead.
Petitioners Syed Musaib and Gulbaddin Ahmad Mir through the PIL seek to stay the government order whereby the state government has made it mandatory for all the government employees to get themselves registered for Aadhaar card or their salaries would be stopped from March this year.
On February 10, the Finance Department vide order number 35 of 2016, has made the Aadhaar based biometric system compulsory for employees of Jammu and Kashmir government.
“The State of Jammu & Kashmir has only 46.9% Aadhar enrollment, which is amongst the lowest number of Aadhar card holders in the entire country. Hence, such impugned government order is illogical and has been passed without any application of mind” the petitioners plead.
“Aadhar Scheme infringes the Right of Privacy and the same is subject matter of five Judge Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court. Such impugned government order undermines and prejudices the case in hand before the Supreme Court as well” they plead.
“The impugned government order suffers from infirmity with respect to the Constitution of India as rest of the citizen of the country in all other parts are exempted from compulsory disclosure and in the state of Jammu & Kashmir people are forced to disclose private information under the cloak of Aadhar Scheme,” the PIL reads.
“ There have been various media reports earlier as well at present, that depict harassment on part of various government department towards the innocent masses on account of Aadhar being mandatory,” the PIL states.
Pointing out that Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a central government agency was established on January 28, 2009 after the Planning Commission of India issued a notification, the petitioners plead that that UIDAI’s basic objective was to collect the biometric and demographic data of residents, store them in a centralized database, and issue a 12-digit unique identity number called Aadhar.
“The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in December-2011, led by Yashwant Sinha, rejected the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 in its then present form and suggested modifications. It termed the project "unethical and volatile of Parliament's prerogatives", they plead.
The petitioners plead that in an interim order on a PIL against Adhar card, the apex court observed that the government cannot deny a service to anyone who does not possess Aadhaar, as it is voluntary.
“The Supreme Court had directed the government to widely publicize in print and electronic media that Aadhaar is not mandatory for any welfare scheme. The Court also referred the petitions claiming Aadhaar is unconstitutional and infringes right of privacy matter to a Constitutional Bench,” they said.
The PIL will come up for hearing, if approved by Chief Justice of J&K High court.
