SC links MNREGA, PF, pension to Aadhaar
The Supreme Court granted permission for use of Aadhaar cards "for MNREGA, Jan Dhan Yojana, pension and provident fund schemes" as opposed to just LPG and public distribution system. A Constitution Bench said that this linking of Aadhaar for providing these services would be on 'voluntary basis' and that no one will be divested of any advantage for the lack of Aadhaar.
The Aadhaar authorities had collected personal biometric data of individuals through various centres, without any law backing it. Moreover, UIDAI had used many private parties to collect the data which led to the potential of it being misused. Further, the information could be leaked or used for unintended purposes such as snooping, as there is no law guaranteed by the government to safeguard it.
The government counsel told the Supreme Court that Indian citizens cannot claim the right to privacy. The argument was advanced by Mukul Rohatgi, the Attorney General saying that the "Constitution makers did not intend to make right to privacy a fundamental right". The argument came as Rohatgi defended the Aadhaar card which is being blamed for its 'intrusive nature' of storing people's information insecurely.
The Government of India has issued 90 crore (902 million) Aadhaar cards so far.
The SC referred a batch of petitions to a Constitution Bench that challenged the Centre's grand scheme to give Aadhaar card to all citizens and determine whether the right to privacy was a fundamental right. The bench heard pleas against rulings of some states to make Aadhaar-cards mandatory for a range of exercises like salary, marriage, provident-fund disbursal, and property registration.
The SC authorized the application of Aadhaar cards for cooking gas users and Public Distribution System beneficiaries. However, it reserved the approval for associating the biometric identification scheme to additional social welfare programmes. SC in its ruling said that "no one would be denied benefits under social welfare schemes for want of the 11-digit unique identification number".
The Centre, along with many important organisations approached the Supreme Court and made an ardent plea for authorizing the "voluntary use of Aadhaar cards" to "accurately identify beneficiaries for welfare schemes." The Centre wanted the SC to modify its 11 August order on the issue. The Centre said that it was not 'snooping' in anyone's bedroom but trying to provide benefits to all.
The Supreme Court declined to give a ruling on the plea to enable citizens to intentionally use Aadhaar cards to avail privileges under all social welfare schemes. This essentially means SC's mandate which confined the use of Aadhaar cards to obtain subsidy on LPG cylinders and ration under public distribution system stays. The matter will now be taken up by five-judge Constitution bench.
