"Yesterday I have filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the decision to treat Aadhaar as a money bill," Ramesh, a former Union Minister during UPA, said here.
With this, the controversy over treating Aadhaar as a money bill, which refuses to die down ever since its passage, has taken a new twist as it is generally believed that Speaker's discretion is final in the matter.
Rejecting Rajya Sabha's five amendments and opposition's appeal not to make "haste", the Lok Sabha had on March 16 passed the Aadhaar bill, that aims at better targeting of subsidies through the Aadhar unique identity.
Shortly before it was adjourned for more than a month-long recess for scrutiny of budget, the Lok Sabha had adopted the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other subsidies, benefits and services) Bill, 2016, by a voice vote after rejecting the recommendations for five amendments made by the Upper House earlier in the evening.
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Once the Lok Sabha passes a money bill with or without amendments recommended by the Rajya Sabha, it is deemed to have been passed by both the Houses.
Showing urgency in getting the law through, the government, which enjoys a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha, had brought the measure to the lower house within an hour of being returned by the Rajya Sabha.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who moved the bill and piloted them in both the Houses, had also turned down opposition argument that Parliament cannot legislate since the matter is before Supreme Court.
Ramesh had said that Jaitley, in his attempt to justify
the decision to treat Aadhaar as money bill, had "misled" the House by claiming that in the past two Bills, one on Juvenile Justice and another on African Development Bank, too had been brought as money bills.
Jaitley then told the House that his source was Lok Sabha website itself.
Calling the passage of the bill in this manner "a very dangerous trend", Ramesh had later said that the government tried to "bypass" the Rajya Sabha by doing this.
"It had many other provisions and most constitutional experts have given the view that the Aadhaar Bill is not a money bill. While the prerogative of declaring a bill as a money bill or not is that of the Speaker and the Speaker's decision is final but the recommendation to the Speaker to consider making it a money bill is that of the Government.
Moving amendments in the Upper House during the consideration of the bill, the former Union Minister had argued that every individual should have the freedom to opt out of Aadhaar and said the present Bill does not give that space.
Stating that he himself does not have an Aadhaar card, Ramesh said a situation may arise when it may be needed even to book a flight or get a phone number.
He suggested that rather than national security, the terms "public emergency" or "public safety" could be used. He suggested that an independent member like the CVC should be included in the panel that decides which information regarding a person can be shared.
Ramesh said any suo motu powers, "even to collect information" should not be given to the Aadhaar authority, for instance it could even direct collection of DNA.