New Delhi: While defending its move to link Aadhaar with PAN cards, the Centre on Wednesday admitted in the Supreme Court that Aadhaar card holders’ data was indeed leaked, but said that there was no leakage of information by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Government counsel Arghya Sengupta made this admission before a bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan when the court brought to his notice newspaper reports about leakage of Aadhaar data. The counsel said that the leakage was by various other government departments and state agencies, and the leakage might have occurred on account of balancing transparency and data protection concerns.

Mr Sengupta said there could be some errors here and there and some IDs were perhaps issued in the names of “Hanuman” and “dogs”, but said UID remains the most sophisticated and authentic biometric system.

He asserted that there was no absolute right to informational self-determination. “The issue was not about discriminating between people on the basis of their having Aadhaar, but the purpose for UID was to prevent de-duplication and to ensure targeted delivery of services to the identified sections,” he said.

Justifying the new law, he said that no enactment could solve a problem in entirety and added that only individuals and not companies were required to have Aadhaar since individuals were the first target. “Tomorrow, we may replace PAN with Aadhaar if such a need arises,” he said.

Senior lawyer Shyam Divan, appearing for retired Major General S.G. Vombatkere and social activist Bezwada Wilson, rejected the counsel’s argument that there was no leakage from UIDAI and said it was not enough for the Centre to say that UIDAI was not leaking data. “In the eyes of citizens, all state authorities are State anyway.” He said when the Aadhar law had not made Aadhar mandatory, how can the new law make linking of Aadhar with PAN mandatory and impose penal provisions for non-compliance.

Mr Divan drew the court’s attention to a report that Haryana had made Aadhaar compulsory for issuance of birth certificates to newborn babies, and said that the scheme makes wholetime surveillance, from cradle to the grave, possible. “This is perhaps the worst project possible under our Constitution and invasion of one’s fundamental right to privacy. The architecture of Aadhar is worthless as far as information security is concerned,” he said.  

“We are concerned with one-seventh of the total population of the world in the wake of a scheme where the degree of invasion is extremely high and protection much low. This system has never been tried in any democratic country in the world. It shows the sinisterness of the government action. We don’t want our life tracked and monitored 24x7 as it be a tremendous compromise on civil liberties,” he said.

Mr Divan argued that a person cannot be compelled by another law to waive free consent so as to alter the voluntary nature of enrolment mandatory. “By visiting those persons who do not have an Aadhar number with severe consequences, the object of the provisions of the new Income-Tax law is itself discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution,” he said.

The counsel contended that there was no justification for discriminating against persons who do not wish to part with their sensitive biometric information such as fingerprints and iris scan. He said the State cannot hold an individual citizen hostage by compelling them to part with something that does not belong to the State. He said by virtue of the aforesaid provision, he and other citizens, who had refrained from enrolling in the Aadhaar scheme due to prevailing apprehensions regarding the infringement of the right to privacy, are being forced to give consent for the enrolment to the scheme.

The counsel argued that the new law was wholly disproportionate and excessive. The so-called State interest is miniscule compared to the massive invasion on person’s liberty and freedom, the counsel argued and prayed for quashing the “offending” provisions. Arguments will continue on May 4.