The Aadhar project of India and unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) have never been considered to be legal and constitutional. This is because both Aadhar project and UIDAI have been imposed upon India that also without any parliamentary oversight.In fact Aadhar project and UIDAI are both undemocratic and unconstitutional as they are openly violating various fundamental rights of Indian citizens that also without following the constitutional procedure. Form time to time, experts have been suggesting that Aadhar project and UIDAI must be scrapped.
Indian government, Aadhar project and UIDAI are hiding truth from Indian citizens and are fooling them. However, sooner or later the truth was bound to be revealed. Besides experts in India now even the home ministry of India has been opposing the Aadhar project and UIDAI.
Neither Aadhar project nor UIDIA have been able to provide the mandatory legal framework under which they can operate. Further, both Aadhar project and UIDAI are openly violating various civil liberties like right to privacy in India.
Realising that Aadhar/UIDAI may be challenged in the Indian Courts; a façade was created in the form of National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 (Bill). The Bill is still to become an applicable law as it has not been approved by the Parliament of India.
However, according to experts like Praveen Dalal, a Supreme Court lawyer and leading techno legal expert of India, even after the Bill becomes and applicable law, both Aadhar and UIDAI would remain “Unconstitutional”. This is so because the “Constitutional Safeguards” that are required to make Aadhar/UIDAI Constitutional are still missing from the proposed Bill.
The Home Ministry has now further identified flaws in the enrolment process followed by the UIDAI, citing cases where people have got UID numbers on the basis of false affidavits. None can doubts that fake UID cards has made Aadhar project further vulnerable to misuse. What is surprising that our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has failed to take notice of these unconstitutional and illegal irregularities in the functioning of Aadhar project and UIDAI.
In a note written to the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the home ministry has questioned the security of the biometric data captured by the UIDAI and pointed out uncertainties in its revenue model.
The UIDAI has sought an additional 15,000 crore to do biometric scanning of all residents of the country through its own registrars, a proposal that is being opposed by the home ministry and the planning commission, as the government has already tasked the census office with the primary responsibility of collecting biometric data of all Indian residents for a National Population register card.
The data collected by the census office is supposed to be shared with the UIDAI and every NPR card will carry the UID number of the card holder. The census office is part of the home ministry and so far has collected biometric data for 30 lakh individuals. The home ministry has urged the Cabinet to restrict the authority's multi-registrar model of biometric enrolment to the already decided level of 20 crore by March 2012.
"The home ministry, the Planning Commission and others have given their comments," Home Minister P Chidambaram said about the UIDAI proposal for more funding recently. He also said that the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI (CCUIDAI) would take a call on the overlap between the NPR and the UIDAI. Why CCUIDAI is allowing futile Aadhar project and UIDAI to continue is still a big mystery?
