New Delhi: The Supreme Court Judge said during a hearing in the crucial Aadhaar case on Tuesday that just because it could be misused it cannot be declared unconstitutional. The Five Judge Constitution Bench had told senior advocate Kapil Sibal that how 12 digit biometric data based unique identity numbers could put the privacy of the citizens at a risk.
The senior lawyer Kapil Sibal appearing for one of the petitioner calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at the World Economic Forum said that “the country which controls the data, Controls the world.
The Constitution bench is hearing a batch of petitions against Aadhar, which was the first filed back in 2012, which opposes the scheme that violates the fundamental right of a person’s privacy. A 2016 law has been challenged that the government has been forced not only to use public benefits and services to enroll for a number, it has also been challenged.
The former Union minister said, “Aadhaar is nothing but right to information for the state”, he said, “information is power and if the state is given the power, then such use will never be used before.” The Mr. Sibal also suggested that the Aadhar’s utility for national security was exaggerated. He said, “Aadhaar identity cannot recognize if a person is a terrorist or money launderer, unless you are aware of the crime.” But Justice DY Chandrachud did not consider.
The Justice Chandrachud, one of the five judges of the case’s hearing, said that there is a long line of judgment of the Supreme Court that “the possibility of misuse cannot lead to strike down the legislation.
Mr. Sibal argued that the Aadhaar law is an exception to these decisions of the top court because the law was misuse or misused. “This is happening everyday”, said Mr. Sibal. Regarding several points about the risks of continuing the Aadhaar law, the judge wondered whether the law was expected to provide level of risk. “The level of risk is acceptable in the absence of technically convinced safe environment and at what level the risk is not acceptable. How will this court decide?” Mr. Sibal said that the state itself does not want to misuse the citizen’s data, but “Once public data is available, it can be misused by private companies. This data is available with banks and telecom service providers. Once you make the data public, it can’t be retrieved.
