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9
June 2017
 |
Supreme Court (The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions)
The Supreme
Court allowed the government another step in making Aadhaar compulsory by the
backdoor but gave a breather to those taxpayers who do not have an Aadhaar
number, striking down the government’s move that would have shut them out from
filing income tax returns. This implied that if a person did hold an Aadhar
card, they would be expected to attach their unique identity number with their
permanent account number (PAN) but if the person did not go through with this
their IT return could not be rejected, thus bringing a stay on the Government’s
law of Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act.
The
Government had brought in a new Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, which had
made it mandatory to quote Aadhaar number or the enrolment ID of Aadhaar
application form for filing of income tax returns with PAN (Permanent Account
Number). This would have come into effect from July 1st. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
This led
various people to rush to the Supreme Court, appealing that this would be an
infringement of privacy and a leak in the data of the Aadhar would be severely
damaging to the general public. Another important argument was that Aadhar was
still voluntary under the law where, previously, the apex court had stated “no
person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card in spite of the fact that
some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory and when any person
applies to get the Aadhaar Card voluntarily”. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Another of
SC’s earlier directive came into question which said “no person shall be
deprived of any service for want of Aadhaar number in case he/she is otherwise
eligible/entitled. All the authorities are directed to modify their forms/
circulars/ like so as to not compulsorily require the Aadhaar number in order
to meet the requirement of the interim order passed by this Court forthwith”.
This made
the Supreme court uphold the law till its validity is checked and is yet to
"test" whether Aadhaar violates the protection of life and personal
liberty granted under Article 21 of the Constitution, which is a pending
hearing before a five-judge Constitution Bench.
Senior
Advocate Shyam Divan, who was representing Dalit activist Bezwada Wilson and
retired Major General SG Vombatkare, argued on the basis of the “informational
self-determination” meaning that a person must have the right to determine the
type of information that belonged to them that could be used and stated that
the right to dignity was safeguarded under Article 21.
Against
this, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi took the stand that “Citizens do not have
absolute right over their bodes” and used political philosopher Rousseau’s
ideology that “the State is like a corporation, and the individuals are its
members. There is no harm in using the collective. There is no harm in using
the collective might of the state to provide orderly life, peace, and
tranquility”.
Senior
Advocate Arvind Datar, who was representing CPI’s senior leader Binoy Viswam,
argued that the decision to link Aadhaar with PAN is legally “unsustainable” as
the validity of Aadhaar is yet to be decided by the court. He also criticised
the logic to link the UID to permanent account number (PAN). Both advocates,
Divan and Datar, emphasised that Aadhar is a voluntary document.The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
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