Aadhaar Verdict: “One can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” said the Supreme Court, which asserted that private parties can’t seek Aadhaar data.
WEB DESK / NEW DELHI
The Supreme Court today upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar document with modifications. It said it will not be required for opening bank accounts, admissions in schools or for getting mobile connections.
The apex court’s five-judge Constitution bench headed 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 the community point of view.
The top court said Aadhaar is serving the much bigger public interest and Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than being best. The court also said a robust data protection regime has to be brought in place as early as possible. It added that there has been minimal demographic and biometric data collected by UIDAI for Aadhaar enrolment. The Apex court observed that unique identification proof also empowers and gives identity to marginalised sections of society.
The court said There is no possibility of obtaining a duplicate Aadhaar card as there is sufficient defence mechanism for authentication in the Aadhaar scheme. The court ruled that Aadhar is not necessary for school admissions and CBSE, NEET, UGC cannot make Aadhaar mandatory. The verdict was pronounced on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 law.
“Aadhaar gives dignity to marginalised sections, which outweighs the harm,” said the apex court in its verdict on 27 petitions that challenged the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and called it a violation of the right to privacy.
The court said “very, very minimal data” is collected for Aadhaar, that other documents needed for Aadhaar are also proof of identity.Over one billion Indians have already signed up for Aadhaar, set up to be a secure form of digital identification for citizens to be used for government services.
Three sets of judgements were pronounced on the issue. The first one was pronounced by Justice A K Sikri who wrote the judgement for himself, the CJI and Justice A M Khanwilkar.
Justice Chandrachud and Justice A Bhushan, who are also part of the bench, have written their individual opinions.
While Justice Chandrachud said he was expressing certain views different from that of the judgement of the three judges, Justice Bhushan said he concurred with the views of the majority.
Justice Sikri struck down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act permitting private entities to avail Aadhaar data and ruled that Aadhaar authentication data cannot be stored for more than six months.
The bench also said there was nothing in the Aadhaar Act that violates the right to privacy of an individual. Ruling that Aadhaar authentication data cannot be stored for more than six months, it directed the government not to give Aadhaar to illegal immigrants.
The verdict was pronounced on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 law.
The 12-digit Unique Identification Number was made compulsory for services including bank accounts, PAN cards, cellphone services, passport and even driving licenses.It was made the overarching proof of identity and residence, overriding all other prior identity proofs.
But as it was rolled out, there were concerns about privacy, data security and recourse for citizens in the face of data leaks.
Petitioners argued that Aadhaar — built on a mammoth biometric database comprising fingerprints and iris scans — cannot be made mandatory.
The huge Aadhaar database can easily be compromised, petitioners had said, pointing out that a law that “impacts human life can’t remain a law”.
The Centre had defended Aadhaar on several grounds – the biggest being that it ensured proper distribution of benefits to millions and prevented siphoning of funds. Aadhaar data is safe and cannot be breached, insisted the government and the Aadhaar authority UIDAI.