The Supreme Court Constitution Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, hearing Aadhaar and related linkages issue (petitions saying that it was unconstitutional), heard Attorney general K K Venugopal on Thursday (April 5), issues that the judges thought were “repetitive”.
Regarding DNA, Venugopal mentioned a foreign judgment, to which the CJI pointed out that this case would not be helpful. He said that “once the DNA sample is collected, it’s profile is created only for identification purposes. It is undisputed that the extraction of the DNA profile is only for identification purposes.”
He emphasised the California’s judgment which had made it clear that DNA extracts are only used to identify an individual. “If anything shall be added in the act by way of a rule or regulation, it shall be separate.”
Justice Chandrachud said: “You cannot strike down a provision merely on the apprehension that it will be misused. Maybe, later in time, semen collection, etc would occur. However, that might be challenged exclusively. But giving such immense power is excessive delegation.”
He referred to page 361 – instead of picking out the potential problem the officials should eliminate the problem at the first instance. He mentioned about other DNA collecting technologies. He further said that fingerprint imaging is 99.99 percent accurate.
He said that an official tool must be used by public officials so that the individual’s identity report is given. Strict scrutiny methods are adopted by the centre in the protection of privacy.
Justice Sikri pointed out that submissions by Venugopal were “all we’ve heard and is repetitive. There is so much of corruption, money laundering, corruption, etc. However, I don’t see a single reason as to why the biometrics are running into problems. These have nothing to do with bank frauds.”
Justice Chandrachud said: “Multiple transactions are avoided. We use layers of transactions.”
Justice Sikri clarified: “Our comment was on the NPAs, etc.”
Venugopal then mentions the Nirav Modi case.
Justice Chandrachud said: “Aadhaar per se did not become unconstitutional as it could answer all kinds of frauds.”
The bar and the bench talked about the widening rich-poor gap and Justice Chandrachud asked: “How far can the net of Aadhaar protect the people?”
Justice Sikri said: “Everyone is a possible criminal. That’s why everyone has to link their Aadhaar numbers with their mobile phones.”
Venugopal replied: “There are an increasing number of terrorism-related activities and this has to be curbed. The use of Aadhaar is only for the purposes of filling up the demographic information and is minimal.
“All this is done to protect the rights of an individual under article 21,” he said. “Invasion of privacy is so minimal that courts have said there is no infringement of the right to privacy per se.”
Mentioning Wikipedia, Venugopal said that one can find every information – from birth to death, on the internet. He said that as per section 7 bare minimal requirement of the identification of an individual is taken and the data taken was totally protected.”
He said that the argument of the government with respect to Aadhaar and subsidy schemes is that production of Aadhaar in order to avail the benefit of the subsidy schemes relies on the fact that only the deserving person gets the benefits.
—India Legal Bureau