Five reasons you shouldn’t allow the passage of the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment Bill)

by- Anupam Saraf

1. The Aadhaar Act undermined the Rajya Sabha and was passed as a Money Bill. Justice Chandrachud in his judgment in WP 494 of 2012 clearly declares the passage of the Aadhaar Act as a fraud on the Constitution. Passing an Amendment to a fraudulent Act is furthering the fraud.

2. The Aadhaar Act has undermined the democratic processes, worse than Cambridge Analytica, by enabling private parties in the ecosystem of Aadhaar to manipulate voters by targeting subsidies[1], benefits and services rather than ensuring no one is excluded.

3. The Aadhaar Act undermines the sovereignty of the people of India by turning the power to the ecosystem of Aadhaar to become sovereigns over the citizens by deciding even their very existence. This is one of the key reasons the UK rejected its national ID[2].

4. The Aadhaar fraudulently masquerades as an identity, or a proof of identity, that it can never be. The primary identification documents used to issue it are not only unknown to the UIDAI, the UIDAI has confirmed under RTI that they cannot retrieve unique records with biometrics, that they do not certify the biometric or demographic data associated with Aadhaar, or even the identity of a person whose data may be authenticated against uncertified, unaudited data with the UIDAI[3]. Justice P.B.Sawant, former judge of the Supreme Court of India, has already highlighted that over 58 crore Aadhaar numbers are suspect as being ghosts or duplicates[4].

5. The UIDAI does not certify the delivery of subsidies, benefits or services to a real or genuine beneficiary. Its existence contravenes the Allocation of Business Rules of the Cabinet[5] and the numerous Acts of the Parliament that empower various departments and ministries to deliver subsidies, benefits and services. It is not accountable to anyone[6] for misappropriation of funds from the Consolidated Fund of India through DBT to Aadhaar numbers whose genuineness has never been verified and is not certified[7].

References:
1. https://www.moneylife.in/article/benami-voters-and-laundering-elections-with-aadhaar/55996.html2. https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/AnupamSaraph/why-the-united-kingdom-scrapped-its-uid3. https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/uidai-database-defective-targeting-subsidies-benefits 4. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/aadhaar-uidai-biometrics-the-numbers-dont-add-up-5512538/5. https://cabsec.gov.in/aob_first.php?page=16. https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/uidai-no-skin-system7. https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/government-must-ensure-clean-delivery-benefits