Petition to the Chief Justice of India,Supreme Court New Delhi.
Please act against the Finance Minister of India for the contempt of court he committed making Aadhar Mandatory for subsidy to deny Indian citizens basic needs and services!
Reference:Order in Item No.501 (Ct.No.1) Re:Aadhaar Card [PDF]
supremecourtofindia.nic.in/FileServer/2015-10-16_1444976434.pdf
Oct 15, 2015 - 1. ITEM NO.501. COURT NO.1. SECTION PIL(W). S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A. RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. Writ Petition(s)(Civil) ...
Your honour!
As ECONOMIC Times published a news story this morning ,Against SC Ruling, Aadhaar to be Mandatory for Subsidies,I being a responsible law abiding citizen of India appeal you to act against the Finance Minister Of India!
Noting that the authorities cannot insist on a citizen to produce his Aadhaar card, the Supreme Court extended the voluntary use of the card to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), all types of pensions schemes, employee provident fund and the Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana.
A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu said use of the Aadhaar card was purely voluntary and not mandatory. With this, the Supreme Court modified an August 11 order issued by its three-judge Bench restricting Aadhaar use to only PDS and LPG (cooking gas) distribution.
The Bench said the purely voluntary nature of the use of Aadhaar card to access public service will continue till the court takes a final decision on whether the Aadhaar scheme is an invasion on the right to privacy of the citizen.
The interim order came after senior advocates Shyam Divan and Gopal Subramanium said the Aadhaar card scheme was neither backed by law nor administrative decree.
Though earlier,the Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the use of Aadhaar identities for Public Distribution System beneficiaries and cooking gas users but withheld permission for linking the biometric identification scheme to other social welfare programmes.
No one would be denied benefits under social welfare schemes for want of the 11-digit unique identification number, said a bench of Justices J Chelameswar, S A Bobde and C Nagappan even it permitted the government to link PDS and LPG subsidies to the Aadhaar card to check possible pilferage.
Though the order can be seen as a partial validation of Aadhaar, its status as the principal identity number remains far from settled as the bench said the number could not be made mandatory for other purposes. The bench further asked the government to make citizens aware about the non-mandatory nature of the unique identification number (UID).
The court was informed by the petitioner that many government agencies including RBI and Election Commission were making Aadhaar cards mandatory identification for banking and voting purposes.
As The Economic Times reported:
Mar 03 2016 : The Economic Times (Kolkata)
Against SC Ruling, Aadhaar to be Mandatory for Subsidies
Ravish Tiwari & Gulveen Aulakh |
New Delhi: |
The Aadhaar (Delivery of Benefits, Subsidies and Services) Bill, 2016 proposed by FM Arun Jaitley is all set to make the Aadhaar number mandatory for availing subsidy benefits of any government scheme, contrary to SC rulings last year that make that voluntary .
The proposed Bill, sources revealed, have already been "seen" by the AttorneyGeneralwho"hasopinedthat the same can be introduced as a Money Bill" in Parliament where opposition dominated Rajya Sabha will have no power to force any change in the legisla tion. The proposed legislation will be moved along with a motion to withdraw the National Identification Authority of India (NIDAI), 2010 which was introduced by the previous UPA government to provide statutory backing to the UIDAI.
The bill, proposed by Jaitely on Monday while presenting the Union Budget, is set to be introduced in Parliament shortly .
The salient features of the proposed Bill, reviewed by ET, makes "proof of Aadhaar number and Aadhar Authentication as a condition for receipt of benefit, subsidy , etc. funded from Consolidated Fund of India" which was not the case of the UPA 's legislation.
This feature of the proposed legislation, however, appeared to run counter to the two rulings of the Supreme Court last year itself.
"The production of an Aadhaar card will not be condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen," the Supreme Court had ruled in an interim order in August last year, exempting its use for public distribution system (PDS) and LPG distribution. The Court reiterated its stance again in October 2015 when central government sought concession for voluntary usage of Aadhaar in other government programmes pending a final verdict on Aadhaar. "We will also make it clear than the Aadhaar card scheme is purely voluntary and it cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by this Court one way or the other," Supreme Court had ordered in October last year while allowing the government to allow use of Aadhar in schemes like MGNREGA, EPFO, PM's Jan Dhan Yojana and National Social Assistance Programme.
While the standing committee of Finance headed by BJP leader and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had trashed the UIDAI's enrolment process as something that "may have far reaching consequences for national security", the pro posed Bill by BJP government seeks to abide by the decision to grant Aadhaar to every "resident". The BJP, in fact, had also objected that granting Aadhaar to "residents" may allow illegal Bangladeshi immigrants to avail it and later misuse for their purposes.
However the salient features suggest that the definition of resident has been "modified" to include "a person who is resident in India within the meaning of section 6(1) of the Income-Tax Act".But, it did not indicate how it will address BJP's earlier concern regarding its usage by illegal immigrants residing in the country for long.
The proposed legislation, in a sig nificant measure, seeks to protect the electronic information collected by the UIDAI from misuse as it seeks to specify that biometric information shall be "specifically deemed to be sensitive personal information as per IT Act". It will also define the "core biometric information" and will insist "prohibition on the sharing of core biometric information".
The Bill proposed by Jaitley, in fact, will provide statutory backing to the UIDAI as it provides for establishment of the Unique Identification Authroity of India consisting of "a Chairperson (part time or full tine) and two Members (part time)" which was also envisaged in the UPA 's Bill.
yours faithfully
Palash Biswas
Journalist,
Gostokanan,Sodepur,Kolkata-700110
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