Opinions

Aadhaar: A confused judgment that calls for a curative petition


The Aadhaar majority judgment is welcome in that it upholds the constitutional validity of issuing a unique identity number, reinforced with biometric data, to beneficiaries of state assistance for the limited purpose of transmitting the benefits without leakage. However, banning private parties from using the number for authentication of identity is a serious setback that will disempower the poor —for many poor people, Aadhaar is the only or primary means of proving their identity.

The majority judgment upheld passage of the Aadhaar bill as a money bill, without the involvement of the Rajya Sabha. This sets a terrible precedent. It is now open to any government to append an expenditure from the consolidated fund of India to any bill, classify it as a money bill and bypass the Rajya Sabha. If this decision is not overturned, the sensible move should be to disband the Upper House of Parliament.

The basis for disallowing use of Aadhaar by private entities is truly amazing. It says that authentication of an individual’s identity by a body corporate would pave the way for commercial exploitation of biometric or demographic information. This contradicts the Court’s own basis for ruling that Aadhaar does not infringe privacy, namely, that the registered devices used for authentication does not store any personal data and merely queries the Aadhaar database to obtain either an affirmative or a negative answer.

The poor today use Aadhaar as a convenient identity document, especially when they are migrants as well as being poor, for obtaining a bank account or a mobile telephone connection. It would be cruel injustice to prevent them from using Aadhaar as a means of identification before commercial entities.

A passport is not mandatory, except when you have to travel abroad. No one can demand a passport as exclusive proof of identity. But no one can refuse to accept a passport as valid proof of identity. The court ruling now prevents Aadhaar from being used as proof of identity, even if someone wants to voluntarily offer it as such. This is most unfortunate.

The government should put in place a rigorous data protection law, incorporating provisions to obtain judicial sanction for any breach of privacy in relation to Aadhaar data and to make the executive accountable to a committee of Parliamentarians for every individual such breach. Then, it should approach the Court again with a curative petition, to allow the poor and the disempowered to make full use of Aadhaar as a reliable identity document.





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