Aadhaar: Ad Hoc Decisions Continue

Moneylife Digital Team 20 March 2018

Public Interest

While the government is hell-bent on linking the Aadhaar number to everything—from birth to death—attorney general, KK Venugopal, suddenly told the Supreme Court that Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has not instructed the Central Board of School Examinations (CBSE) to make Aadhaar mandatory for entrance examinations like National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). This was when senior counsel, Arvind Datar, informed the apex court about violations after violations of its orders, the latest being NEET website from Gujarat insisting on the Aadhaar number of the applicant for filling the online application form. The five-judge Bench, hearing the Aadhaar cases, says,

“...the applicants need not produce Aadhaar number for applying. They can produce any alternative means of identification including ration card and driving licence.”

NEET-UG is an entrance examination, in India, for students who wish to take any graduate medical course, dental course or post-graduate course at a government or private medical college in India.

There are two issues with the contention made by Mr Venugopal. First, Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act says that the Central ministries or state governments that want to use Aadhaar should issue a notification stating the service, benefits or subsidies from the Consolidated Fund of India, which require the beneficiary’s Aadhaar authentication or furnishing proof of Aadhaar.

Secondly, UIDAI says that the use of Aadhaar is to be determined by the implementing agencies. Even the Aadhaar Act states that there should be no denial of a benefit for want of the Aadhaar number. “Any individual, irrespective of age and gender, who is a resident of India, may voluntarily enrol to obtain Aadhaar number,” UIDAI says. The question here is: If it is ‘voluntary’, how can any agency make it mandatory, even for availing benefits or services that are not funded from the Consolidated Fund of India?

Mr Datar also exposed the double standards of Aadhaar and how it tries to establish itself as ‘de-facto’ identity proof. “To get my Aadhaar, I have to show one of 18 approved proofs of identity, including ration card. But the moment I get an Aadhaar, all those proofs of identity become effectively invalid. You are making the livelihood of people dependent on a machine that works on a probabilistic basis. The right to life is being made contingent on an inherently faulty machine.”

Earlier, senior counsel, Shyam Divan, too, had informed the Bench that the number of Aadhaar cards generated through the introducer system is just 219,000 which is just 0.03% of the population. This means that 99.7% Aadhaar-holders have obtained their ID number after submitting one or the other existing identity proof.

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