The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Friday told the Madras High Court that it cannot comply with the court’s November 24 order to submit former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s thumbprints saying there is a statutory bar on sharing core biometric information provided by those who apply for Aadhaar cards.
The submission was made before Justice P. Velmurugan, who was hearing a petition that the thumb impressions reportedly affixed by Ms. Jayalalithaa on the documents related to the byelection at Tirupparankundram during her hospitalisation last year, were not genuine.
However, jailor K. N. Mohan Kumar of Parappana Agrahara prison in Karnataka submitted thumbprints were as per the judge’s directive. In order to test the correctness of the claim that Jayalalithaa’s thumb impressions affixed in the election documents were not genuine, Mr. Justice Velmurugan had directed the UIDAI chairman as well as the Superintendent of Parappana Agrahara central prison in Karnataka, where Ms. Jayalalithaa had been lodged for 21 days after her conviction in a disproportionate assets case in September 2014, to produce her thumb impressions for cross verification.
Jailor presents USB drive
Jailor K.N. Mohan Kumar appeared before the judge on Friday and presented a USB drive containing a soft copy of her thumb impression. He said that the practice in the prisons in Karnataka was to record the thumb impressions of convicts electronically and obtain their signatures alone on hard copies of prison records. He had also brought with him a register, which had been maintained in the prison between March 29, 2014 and February 22, 2015, containing the signatures of all convict prisoners who had been assigned CTP (convict prisoner) numbers between 7093 and 7693. Ms. Jayalalithaa had been assigned CTP number 7402 and lodged in VVIP cell.
The judge however, did not look into the register and took the soft copy of the thumb impression alone on file. Counsel for UIDAI Zoheb Hossain contended that there was a legal bar on sharing biometric info of Aadhaar applicants. Y.L.P. Rao, Deputy Director General, UIDAI, was present in court.
Mr. Hossain said that Section 29 (1) (a) and (b) of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act of 2016 states that no ‘core biometric information,’ collected or created under the Act, should be shared with anyone for any reason whatsoever or used for any purpose other than generation and authentication of Aadhaar numbers.
Further, a combined reading of Sections 29 (2) and Section 33 (1) of the Act would mean that even courts could call for only ‘identity information,’ other than core biometric information, counsel contended.
He went on to point out that though the term ‘identity information,’ had been defined in the Act to include the Aadhaar number, biometric information, as well as demographic information, the definition of ‘core biometric information’ would mean “fingerprint, Iris scan, or such other biological attributes of an individual as may be specified by regulations.”
Legal question
The judge said the legal plea raised by UIDAI could be decided later. He directed its counsel to first file an affidavit by December 15 disclosing whether Ms. Jayalalithaa had ever applied for Aadhaar card, if her biometric details were recorded, and whether an Aadhaar card was issued to her.
Though the counsel initially told the court that she had indeed applied for Aadhaar card, he later chose to avail the time provided by the court to verify the facts from UIDAI.
Adjourning further hearing of the case to December 15, Mr. Justice Velmurugan ordered that the Superintendent of Parappana Agrahara Central Prison file a certificate under Section 65(b) of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 stating that the thumbprint submitted by him in the form of an electronic record was genuine.
The election petition had been preferred by DMK candidate P. Saravanan, a Madurai-based oncologist, who had lost the bypoll to AIADMK candidate A.K. Bose. When the hearing began, counsel for Mr. Bose informed the judge that an appeal had been preferred in the Supreme Court challenging the High Court’s November 24 order. The judge wanted to know whether any order had been passed and counsel replied that the appeal was expected to be taken up for hearing shortly. Since the Supreme Court had not passed any order at that point of time, the judge decided to proceed with the hearing on the election petition.
However, after the judge heard the Jailor and the UIDAI counsel and was about to complete the proceedings for the day at 2:45 pm, the advocate representing Mr. Bose said he had received a message from his counter parts in New Delhi that the apex court had granted an interim stay of the High Court’s order.
Observing that the day’s proceedings had already been completed, the judge directed the counsel to produce a copy of the order reportedly passed by the Supreme Court on December 15 so that he could take an appropriate decision on the next course of action.
