SC to resume hearing in Aadhaar matter by Shelley Chandler
| January 19, 2018 | 15:35
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Aadhaar challengers if the state can not ask its citizens to cite 12-digit unique identification numbers to ensure that the money being spent on welfare schemes reached to the real beneficiaries. "If the Aadhaar Act and programme is allowed to operate unimpeded it will hollow out the Constitution, particularly the great rights and liberties it assures to citizens", said Divan appearing for the petitioners challenging Aadhaar Act. Referring to the legal position with regard to the national population census, he said it has been made clear that the personal and demographic details of citizens collected during census were being protected, but in case of Aadhaar, there was no such safeguard. He said that the private party is outside the control of the UIDAI and can use the data for their own commercial purposes. During the day-long hearing, Divan further objected to the use of third parties to collect this information. The bench, however, pointed out that people provide personal information to private companies while getting mobile connection and insurance and asked why they should be reluctant in giving information under Aadhaar scheme. In response, advocate Shyam Divan, who represents the petitioners, said the problem was that there was no contract with the entity with which citizens were asked to share data. Nowhere in the form, the judges were told, did it state that parting of information was voluntary. Highlighting the alleged malady of the Aadhaar system, he said it would lead to profiling and surveillance of citizens from birth to death. Divan asked the bench to bear in mind three aspects - integrity of the process followed for collection of personal and biometric data, integrity of information being collected, and the pervasive invasion of the fundamental rights in view of the top court's privacy judgement. According to him, the Constitution balances rights of an individual against the State interest but Aadhaar upsets this balance and "skews the relationship" between the citizen and the State. Whether the Aadhaar project conflicts with the Rule of Law and constitutionalism. The hearing continues on 23 January. He submitted that the Constitution must repudiate Aadhaar in order to "preserve itself, its abiding values, its foundational morality and to protect citizens from the advent of an all-seeing, intrusive State that recognises not the individual, but a number". It posed whether the government does not have the right to say that it was spending crores of rupees on welfare schemes and needed to verify whether benefits reached the needy and the leakages or pilferages of resources stopped. "This is a valid argument". The apex court has also received petitions regarding the linkage of this 12-digit number with mobile phones, bank accounts and so on, the last date for which was extended to March 31this year.
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