Arun Jaitley justifies Lok Sabha Aadhaar call

Even as the Opposition charged the Narendra Modi government with showing “utter contempt” of the Rajya Sabha for taking the money bill route to pass the Aadhaar Bill, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Friday justified the Lok Sabha rejecting the amendments made by the Upper House, saying adoption of changes would have pushed the legislation, aimed at streamlining the payment of benefits, into realms of unconstitutionality. In an article on his Facebook page, Mr Jaitley maintained acceptance of the amendments would have led to much wider encroachment of the right to privacy and an auditor or an anti-corruption authority overseeing issues of national security. “These lacunae would have pushed the Aadhaar law to the realm of unconstitutionality. Obviously, the Lok Sabha did not agree with the above suggestions, and in my view, rightly so,” the minister wrote. The Lok Sabha, on the last day of the first half of the Budget Session on Wednesday, waited for the Rajya Sabha to decide on the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, and then swiftly rejected the amendments made to the legislation. The amendments to be bill in the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling NDA does not have majority, were moved by Congress members, including Jairam Ramesh.

Mr Jaitley asserted that the legislation, aimed at better targeting of subsidies and benefits through use of unique identification number, contains stringent provisions both substantially and procedurally to protect privacy.

While national security is the only ground on which a competent authority can share core biometric information contained in Aadhaar, amendments wanted the condition to be replaced with “vague” and “elastic” public emergency or in the interest of public safety.

“It is also not clear as to how Aadhaar information would have been used in dealing with situations of public emergency or public safety,” he said.

Mr Jaitley said adoption of the amendment “would have provided a scope much wider for encroaching upon privacy than the words ‘national security’ which existed in both the 2010 (law moved by the UPA) and 2016 law, and would have potentially become the grounds for constitutional challenge at a later date”. He said the Congress, using its superior numbers in the Upper House, forced an amendment to replace the words “national security” with the words “public emergency or in the interest of public safety”. None of these two phrases are well defined. They are vague and can be elastic.

“It is also not clear as to how Aadhaar information would have been used in dealing with situations of public emergency or public safety,” he said. The core biometric information cannot be shared with any person even with the consent of the Aadhaar card holder.

On the proposed another amendment that the oversight committee to review the competent authority’s decision should also comprise of either the Central Vigilance Commissioner or the Comptroller and Auditor-General, Mr Jaitley said one is an anti-corruption authority and the other audits the government’s accounts.

“Both have no nexus whatsoever with the issues of national security,” he said. The minister said the Congress amendment proposed to delete Section 57 of the 2016 law. Section 57 states that if under any other law the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual is permitted, the same law is not being overruled.

Stating that this proposed amendment wanted all future laws to be overruled, he said: “Had a money bill started overruling future unknown legislations, it would have ceased to be a money bill. Had the amendments proposed in the Rajya Sabha been accepted, the encroachment to the right to privacy would be much wider.”