In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Friday, February 16, 2018

12821 - The Supreme Court Is Still Sitting On An Active Volcano - BloombergQuintOpinion




Indira Jaising
 @IJaising
15 February 2018, 4:29 PM


Four sitting judges of the Supreme Court of India addressing a press conference was no doubt an unusual step, but that does not make it illegal or improper as some have suggested. The self-imposed code of conduct for judges has been cited in support of saying that judges are not supposed to go to the press. True, but that is in relation to their judgments. No judge is expected to support her own judgment in the press but allows ‘the judgment to speak for itself’. This is absolutely true, but where is the embargo on a judge speaking about administrative matters?

The four judges who did speak out at the press conference spoke about the alleged mischief which has been in operation in the administration of justice, more particularly in assigning cases to a “bench of preference” by Chief Justices. We must not miss the emphasis on the plural, implying that the practice began with the former Chief Justice Khehar who was criticised for having killed the challenge to demonetisation by delay, not listing the Aadhaar matter promptly and fast-tracking the triple talaq matter in the vacation. The story is simple, the Chief Justice, who is the ‘Master of the Roster’ (what if the Chief justice is a woman, will she be Mistress of the Roster?), can kill a case, can determine the outcome of the case by assigning it to a particular bench. Hence, the issue is institutional and not personal.

That judges have pronounced philosophical approaches to an issue — some are diametrically opposed to each other — is a known fact, but what does this imply for the Master of the Roster?

Can he pick and choose judges to whom to assign ‘sensitive’ matters? Sensitive is being used here to indicate cases in which politicians or judges are implicated in unlawful acts. I am not one who believes that judges can be free of a worldview, what I expect is a disclosure of connections, personal and political by the judges.

Those who quote the conduct rules, which do prevent the judges from speaking to the press, forget that the rule prevents them from socialising at private events of lawyers and politicians. In Delhi, it is fashionable to have politicians at marriage functions and Judges have also fallen prey to this. Similarly, they wine and dine, and what is worse, some have been seen accept gifts from practicing lawyers, making a mockery of justice. Justice SK Gangele, of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, threw a party on his own twenty-fifth wedding anniversary at which he invited top ranking police officers, senior lawyers, and people who would be potential litigants in his court and, in videos produced in an impeachment proceeding, can be seen accepting gifts. He is not an exception to the rule.

Also Read: Judges Can’t Behave Like Company Shareholders, Says Former Attorney General Sorabjee

So you ask what is the solution to the problem? The solution can only be transparency. It must be incumbent on all persons being considered by appointment to disclose in public, their political affiliations, the membership of student unions during their student days, and their connections with politicians. It is not enough to disclose your assets, in today’s world or in any world, a person’s real estate seems to be his or her connections with the rich and the powerful. These disclosures must be made in appointment hearings and also during the tenure of the judge as time goes on so that at any given time, it is possible to assess the true independence of a judge from extraneous influences.

So while I do not demand that judges live in ivory towers, I do demand that they make disclosures of their interests in social, political and economic issues of a public nature. 
The judges who spoke out at the press conference in their own words “discharged a debt to the nation”, powerful words intended to alert us to the danger to the collapse of the judiciary from within. External political forces will always have a vested interest in the collapse of the judiciary, every government has always been the largest litigant before the court, but the judiciary cannot collapse unless they want it to collapse. It is now universally recognised that resistance to the undemocratic functioning of governments can come in the form of two sources, the press, and the judiciary. If any one of the two fails to perform its historic and constitutional role, democracy itself can collapse.

Also Read: No Judicial Crisis Here, Says Attorney General Of India On Supreme Court Rift

The Constitution itself has a transformative social justice agenda, if judges must commit to anything, it is to that transformative agenda they must commit in their judgments.

As the public debate polarises into ‘with me’ or ‘against me’, ‘national’ or ‘anti-national’, there is a danger that we will see this happening in our courts. We have seen Kanhaiya Kumar being beaten up in the premises of the court, we have seen women lawyers from the North East being spoken to with racial slurs, we have seen orange flags hoisted on courts when Shambulal Regar — who is being tried for the killing of Mohammad Afrazul in Rajasthan — was produced in court, more of this will destroy the secular fabric of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court will now have to save itself from itself, that is the huge significance of the historic moment in Indian legal history of the four judges addressing the press, not only were they sending a message to the Chief Justice of India publically but also to powerful litigants, ‘don’t mess with us’. History will judge whether they succeeded.

The story of the press conference is not over, the Supreme Court is sitting on a volcano, which can erupt anytime. We know that in most institutions, resistance comes from within, from whistle-blowers, that is what we have seen. This is a turning point, the Supreme Court may implode or it may emerge from this crisis stronger. It is time for big-ticket reform, only transparency can bring in this reform. This is why I have filed a petition in the Supreme Court calling for all hearings in important cases to be live-streamed, this is why I think we need confirmation hearings of appointment of judges. We are beckoned to move on to putting in place a more accountable judiciary.

Indira Jaising is an advocate and former Additional Solicitor General practicing in the Supreme Court of India.

The views expressed here are those of the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.


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