The Supreme Court of India(SCI)’s five-judge Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach the marginalised sections of the society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from personal but also from community point of view.
The SCI in a historic and long-awaited judgment on Wednesday Sep 26,2018 upheld the validity of the Aadhaar, but read down multiple sections of the Act.
In a nutshell, while Aadhaar is constitutionally valid, it is not mandatory for all services.
The SCI said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach the marginalised sections of the society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from personal but also from community point of view.
Here is a list of services that do not require mandatory Aadhaar:
1)Bank Accounts: The SC in its judgment on Wednesday said, “Bank account need not be linked with Aadhaar.”
2)Mobile Numbers: Earlier in its order it said that to get a new SIM card and also for existing mobile number holders, Aadhaar was compulsory. Reading this down, the apex court ruled that mobile numbers need not be linked with Aadhaar.
3)Schools: The SC said, “Education will not be denied to any student in the event of no Aadhaar.” Along with this, the SC also said that all social schemes provided in schools cannot be denied to any child on the basis of no Aadhaar.
4)Exams: Further, the SC said that Central Board of Secondary Education and NEET exams will not need Aadhaar anymore.
5)Private Bodies: The court also ruled that schools cannot insist on Aadhaar and read down Section 57 of the Act, barring sharing of information with corporate bodies.
Wednesday’s Supreme Court Aadhaar ruling has highlighted two main aspects of the unique identification project — one, Aadhaar as digital identity infrastructure and, two, its application as public infrastructure for various purposes.
On the first aspect, the majority judgment has upheld the validity of the project, and stated that the architecture of Aadhaar, and the provisions of the Aadhaar Act, do not tend to create a surveillance state.
However, the judgment has also red-flagged several applications of Aadhaar that do not meet the test of proportionality, such as the linking of Aadhaar with mobile number and bank accounts, and declared them unconstitutional.
Fears have been expressed that Aadhaar had created, or could create, a surveillance state. What has the court said?
The majority verdict of four judges says the manner in which the Aadhaar project operates, ensures that the provisions of the Aadhaar Act “do not tend to create a surveillance state”.
During the enrolment process, “minimal biometric data in the form of iris and fingerprints is collected”, and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) — which oversees the Aadhaar enrolment exercise — “does not collect purpose, location or details of the transaction”.
The suggestion that Aadhaar would create a surveillance state was “not well founded”, the judgment says, “and in any case, taken care of by the diffluence exercise carried out with the striking down certain offending provisions in their present form”.
In his minority judgment, Justice D Y Chandrachud said that from the verification log, it was possible to locate the places of transactions carried out by an individual over the past five years. The majority verdict has, however, said that authentication logs should be deleted after six months, instead of the five years required under the existing regulations. Justice Chandrachud also noted that it was possible to track an individual’s location through the Aadhaar database, even without the verification log. “The architecture of Aadhaar poses a risk of potential surveillance activities through the Aadhaar database,” he said.
What about the argument that the Aadhaar Act violates the right to privacy and is, therefore, unconstitutional?
Not all matters pertaining to an individual were an inherent part of the right to privacy — only those matters in which there was a reasonable expectation of privacy were protected by Article 21 of the Constitution, the court has said. The Aadhaar scheme, which is backed by the Aadhaar Act, passes the triple test laid down in the Puttaswamy (Privacy) judgment to determine the reasonableness of the invasion of privacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment