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Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran, appearing for the Centre in the PIL challenging the compulsory issuance of Aadhaar numbers said, the Aadhaar card was in any case voluntary, and so, no interim directions were required by the court which in a ruling yesterday said that the scheme cannot be made mandatory for availing public services and subsidies.
Parasaran is technically correct. The government and UIADI Chairman Nandan Nilekani have in fact repeatedly told anti-Aadhaar lobbyists that it is not an obligatory card and so their allegations are invalid. But Nilekani in the past is reported to have made a remark saying Aadhaar will become ‘ubiquitous’ in the future, implying that there will be no escaping it if citizens were to avail of certain government services and subsidies.
Empirical evidence suggests that it is already happening. Aadhaar is reportedly being made mandatory for registration of property and marriages in states like Maharashtra and Delhi and authorities have been seen demanding the card for linking services such as cooking gas subsidies as well. Schools, presumably under the direction of the government, have also been demanding that parents get their kids registered compulsorily. In fact the backbone of the government’s ambitious direct cash transfers program is said to be the Aadhaar card, which will act as a link between the government and the beneficiary by linking the Aadhaar number of the recipient to his/her bank account to ensure that subsidies are targeted properly.
Given that the government thinks of the UIDAI as a critical enabler for many of its projects, the only rational option before it now, seems to be to get the National Identification Authority of India Bill, which gives statutory powers to the UIADI, passed. This has been stuck in parliament due to opposition by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance headed by Yashwant Sinha and the government hasn’t moved on it because it felt the UIDAI could continue functioning legally without legislative backing. With that assumption now challenged, giving Aadhaar legal sanctity becomes critical.
One tricky option to tiptoe around the court order and quash the growing hullabaloo among activists around its illegality would be to bring about an ordinance. But that would be difficult say legal experts. “That would not happen. And even if it does it will be challenged and there will be a big hue and cry because the Parliamentary Standing Committee has rejected the bill in its report. Also the government has come forward and said itself that it is voluntary, so how can they bring about an ordinance?” says Senior Advocate Anil Divan who represented the petition filed by retired Karnataka High Court Judge KS Puttaswamy.
It is unclear what the government will do now. But the bigger question is - what could be the potential impact of this Supreme Court ruling, especially on schemes like the direct benefits transfers? Could it potentially cripple these reforms?
“Aadhaar is basically a means to identify people and there are several other ways to do it. They may not be as perfect as the government claims Aadhaar to be, but that doesn’t mean the SC ruling makes cash transfers impractical” Professor VS Vyas, Member of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council said.
Reetika Khera, Economist and Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi who has done seminal work in the area agrees. “The DBT scheme doesn’t really depend on Aadhaar contrary to popular belief. The critical thing is to improve bank penetration, develop electronic banking at the last mile and do basic level of computerization. Aadhaar is almost superfluous and without improvement in these areas it is actually meaningless. What the government is doing by forcing people to enroll and excluding those who don’t, is making Aadhaar a tool of exclusion rather than a tool of inclusion”
Banking penetration has increased significantly in the last 3 years, but over half of India still continues to remain unbanked and of 6 lakh villages only 36,000 are covered by brick and mortar bank branches according to RBI data.
