The UIDAI on Wednesday said it was better to improve Aadhaar rather than stall the scheme or make it “collapse.”
Appearing before a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for UIDAI, said it was “part of my dignity to be recognised.” He said the Aadhaar scheme was meant to provide recognition, identity and dignity to the masses.
“Human beings want more and more recognition,” Mr. Dwivedi submitted.
“Why stall it [Aadhaar]? Why let it collapse? Much better to make it work… improve it. Change can be brought to the rules. Aadhaar helps in the real world,” he said.
He said nobody could say ‘I will choose my identity’. Conditions of authentication for Aadhaar were not restrictions, but “regulatory conditions.”
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, on the Bench, countered there should be a “choice of identities” available to citizens for them to access welfare and services. It could not be said that a person could be identified only through Aadhaar, Justice Chandrachud observed.
Besides, Justice Chandrachud said the demand for a certain kind of identification, like biometrics, should not exceed the objective of the purpose.
Mr. Dwivedi argued that citizens had so far made do with local identities like ration cards, which had no value outside their respective areas. Some were written in the local language.
Pan-India appeal
He said Aadhaar was called “unique” because it had a pan-India appeal unlike other forms of local identities.
Justice A.K. Sikri, on the Bench, reminded that the main issue projected by the petitioners was not just about identities, but also the aggregation of personal data in a central storage system.
Justice Chandrachud pointed out that biometrics itself did not give information. But aggregation of biometric activities of a person might lead to the mapping of a person’s life.
Mr. Dwivedi said the UIDAI did not aggregate personal data and it was not possible to conceive a situation where authentication was done by only one requesting entity. Authentication, over a period of a person’s life, would be done by many requesting entities.
