India's Top Court Refuses To Scrap Aadhaar, the World's Largest Biometric ID Database (huffingtonpost.in)

India's top court refused to scrap Aadhaar, the world's largest biometric database, in a ruling announced Wednesday, upholding the validity of the sprawling digital-identity program but also imposing some restrictions on its use and proliferation. Huffington Post reports: The majority judgement of the court read down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act of 2016, holding that private companies cannot insist on Aadhaar numbers from citizens to provide services. The court upheld the validity of linking aadhaar to PAN cards, suggesting that -- should the government wish it -- anyone who pays income tax will have to an aadhaar number anyway. However, the court held the linking of aadhaar numbers to bank accounts, as mandated by an amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act of 2002, was unconstitutional. The court also held that educational institutions and bodies like the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) and University Grants Commission (UGC), and schools and colleges, cannot ask for Aadhaar details of potential candidates.

Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, and Justices AK Sikri and AM Khanwilkar delivered a concurrent majority judgement, while Justices DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan delivered separate opinions. The majority judgement, read out in a packed courthouse by Justice Sikri, relied heavily on the court's landmark 2017 Privacy judgement. "Today the Supreme Court has passed a historic judgement on Aadhaar," said Supreme Court Advocate Prashant Bhushan. "They have held several parts of the Aadhaar act to be unconstitutional." The court's decision restricting private companies from demanding Aadhaar numbers, Bhushan said, would come as a relief. The ruling could come as a blow for local companies -- like Jio and Paytm -- that rely heavily (or even exclusively) on technologies such as Aadhaar's eKYC (an Aadhaar-enabled Know Your Customer service) to grow their customer base, analysts say.

Comments

This is the stupidest ruling ever!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The whole idea of this Aadhar system is to prevent impersonation and changing identities. In India there is no real way to find who a person is. People casually migrate across the border and melt into the society. People borrow from banks or private parties and abscond. People submit fake certificates of degrees and diplomas. Most retail stores maintain two sets of books and the owners are usually untraceable.

Indian government is making serious efforts to reduce tax evasion, and personal fraud by making cash transactions difficult. Suddenly announces denomination of large currency notes, and only people who can prove they really earned the money legally get new notes, and all the old black money notes become useless.

But there is so much corruption nothing really changes.

This ruling allows the government to collect the data. But prevents it from using it to reduce fraud.