Govt refuses to discuss Aadhaar bill issue in Rajya Sabha

Though the NDA Government on March 11 got the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, passed in Lok Sabha after converting it into a money bill, which in other words does not make it mandatory to seek Rajya Sabha’s consent, sources aware of the development said that it refused to heed to the request of the Opposition parties — who during the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Upper House on the same day sought an extension of the ongoing Budget session to discuss the legislation, fearing that it may face embarrassment in the Upper House owing to poor bench strength there.

Sources said that several BAC members from the Opposition sought a two days extension of the current session to discuss the Aadhaar Bill, also known as Aadhaar (Targetted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill 2016. However, the request was not accepted owing to NDA being in minority in Rajya Sabha.

Meanwhile, the bill itself is being closely scrutinised in political as well as social circles, primarily owing to the fact that just like its predecessor — the UPA’s National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 (which faced a lot of criticism from a Parliamentary panel and got lapsed after the expiry of the 15th Lok Sabha) — it does not make Aadhar number as mandatory proof of citizenship or domicile. This is in line with the UPA Bill, which the then government had to revise in October 2013 after the Supreme Court in September 2013 had questioned Aadhaar’s legal sanctity.

Interestingly, the point of debate here is that when Aadhaar is not a mandatory proof of identity, then why does the legislation’s objective says that it will provide for targetted delivery of subsidies through assigning of unique identity numbers to them.

Thus the bill seems to be contradictory in nature, as on one hand it does not make Aadhaar number as mandatory proof identity, while on the other hand, it plans to deliver subsidies to holders of such a number!

Secondly and most importantly, several members in Lok Sabha during the discussion on the legislation on March 11 raised questions on the aspects of right to privacy of individuals.

Tathagata Satpathy, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP from Dhenkanal while speaking against the bill in the lower house said, “it (the bill) has been showcased as a tool exclusively meant for disbursement of subsidies and we do not realise that it can also be used for mass surveillance or, to take it a step further, to a very much more dangerous proposition for genetic or ethnic cleansing.”

He had sought to know from the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley whether the Government can give an assurance that the biometric data collected for Aadhar number “will not be mis-utilised”.

Though Mr Jaitley while citing chapters and sections of the bill dealing with secrecy and confidentiality of information, explained to the House that no biometric information will be shared with anyone and that it will be used only for the purpose of generation of Aadhar numbers and no other purpose and no information will be leaked out, doubts still remain on this aspect.

Sources pointed out that if the bill goes in for discussion in Rajya Sabha, then chances are that the security aspect may get sharply scrutinised.