Aadhaar linkages case: Comparisons made with US’ Social Security Number

The Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud, A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan on Wednesday (May 2), hearing the bunch of petitions regarding the linking of Aadhaar, heard counsel Zoaib Hussain, representing the state of Maharashtra and the UIDAI.

He makes his submissions over a bunch of international charters and covenants to the bench on harmonization of socio-economic and civil political rights before the bench.

Justice Chandrachud said: “There has to be a balance between the fundamental rights and the directive principles and this court has made this stand very clear in various cases.”

The counsel refers to page 574 of his submissions where he reads out the committee’s report by justice DP Wadhawan. The report by the high power committee of Justice DP Wadhwa deals with the Constitution of Central Vigilance Committee on Public Distribution System and its Charter.

Then he refers to a Supreme Court judgment which deals with article 41 of the constitution and the fundamental rights. (Mohini Jain case). Then he refers to Unnikrishnan case where the primary education took turn towards the basic fundamental right. He then mentions the significance of socio-economic rights.

He said that in the violation of social, economic and cultural rights, it becomes the duty of the state to ensure that these rights are protected.

All human rights are equally important, he says, indivisible and are interconnected. Socio economic rights are as important as civil and political rights.

Page 22 of his submissions throws light on the proportionality principle. He refers to the directive principles under articles 39, 41,51c, etc. He reads out a paragraph from the additional affidavit. The bank will never have any information about its customers or their transactions, he said.

He quotes section 133 of the Income Tax Act. He explains the development of social security number in the US. He cites a congressional report and says that SSN is a quasi universal personal identification number and is used for a variety of purposes such as identifying convicted criminals, obtaining a loan or insurance, etc.

He further submits that individuals in the US can be denied benefits if they do not produce SSN.

He refers to point 3 of his written submissions: the safeguard under the Aadhaar Act does not even qualify the safeguards mentioned in the PUCL case. (This is the point of contention). He refers to section 34, disclosure of information in certain cases.

A joint secretary alone cannot give away an individual’s information until reviewed by the oversight committee, he said.

He presented a chart, showing Aadhaar does not increase any threat to infringe the privacy as the government can do much more without breaching the Aadhaar Act.  He said Section 32 is challenged as it does not define the term “national security”. He said national security is paramount, in a situation of national security, a country cannot follow the course of natural justice.

He said that as per Section 47 of the Aadhaar Act it is also being challenged that an individual has no right to file a complaint under the Act itself. The counsel submits that such a right has been reserved for the UIDAI itself.

He further mentions section 139AA of the Income Tax Act – protection of revenue is a valid ground to impose reasonable restrictions. The Aadhaar Act 2016 and the Income Tax Act are standalone laws, they do not intersect each other.

Section 34 of the Industrial Disputes Act quoted before the bench stating that “No Court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act or of the abetment of any such offence, save on complaint made by or under the authority of the appropriate government.”

The genuineness of an individual can be identified easily once Aadhaar is linked to the TIN number of the companies. So goes when the companies file their income tax returns every year. Fake companies can be identified easily.

Thereafter Attorney General K K Venugopal began his submissions. Section 7, 24,25 and the preamble of the Aadhaar Act completely falls under article 110 and hence, Aadhaar Act is a money bill, submits Venugopal.

Matter listed again for tomorrow.

—India Legal Bureau