FIR for unauthorised access, not whistle-blowing: UIDAI justifies FIR on journo

Mumbai: Unique Identification Data Authority of India (UIDAI) on Sunday released a statement clarifying its stand on lodging an FIR on The Tribune reporter Rachana Khair earlier in the day.

Khair, The Tribune journalist had exposed how an online racket was selling personal Aadhaar details of individuals for nominal amounts, was mentioned in the FIR lodged by UIDAI.

The complaint also names people who were involved in this online racket.

However, the Editor's Guild of India promptly condemned the action taken by the UIDAI.

"It is clearly meant to browbeat a journalist whose investigation on the matter was of great public interest. It is unfair, unjustified and a direct attack on the freedom of the press," the Guild said in a statement.

The UIDAI's clarification statement says, its intention was not to target the media in any way.

Again denying the alleged data breach, the UIDAI mentioned in its statement that the FIR was not launched for exposing the breach, but for unauthorised access.

"UIDAI respects free speech including the Freedom of Press and Media...However UIDAI's act of filing an FIR with full details should not be viewed as UIDAI targetting the media or the whistle-blowers or 'shooting the messengers,'" the statement read.

To substantiate its argument, the authority also said that it had narrated the entire chain of events to the police in the FIR and the reporter's name was mentioned in context.

The UIDAI cited the example of the Supreme Court's 2014 verdict in the Rajiv Prasad versus CBI case to state that a person's guilt or innocence is not asserted by the presence of their name in an FIR but only after a police probe and a trial.