Supreme Court leaves everyone hanging on Aadhaar for now
The Supreme Court gave anti-Aadhaar activists a small reason to rejoice on June 9, but not enough to smile. In what can be seen as a minor setback for the Modi government, the apex court granted a partial stay on section 139AA - the highly controversial amendment in the Income Tax Act, which makes the submission of one’s Aadhaar or UID compulsory for filing tax returns, as well as to obtain and retain the Permanent Account Number (PAN).
While the apex court upheld the government’s scheme to link Aadhaar to PAN - the Section 139AA itself - it refused to make it compulsory for those who don’t have an Aadhaar card or those who have not yet applied for one, till the Constitutional Bench decides the privacy question. However, it said that those who have Aadhar need to link it with PAN in order to retain it, and file their tax returns.
According to section 139AA of the Income Tax (I-T) Act:
139AA. (1) Every person who is eligible to obtain Aadhaar number shall, on or after the 1st day of July, 2017, quote Aadhaar number—
(i) in the application form for allotment of permanent account number;
(ii) in the return of income:
Provided that where the person does not possess the Aadhaar Number, the Enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form issued to him at the time of enrolment shall be quoted in the application for permanent account number or, as the case may be, in the return of income furnished by him.
(2) Every person who has been allotted permanent account number as on the 1st day of July, 2017, and who is eligible to obtain Aadhaar number, shall intimate his Aadhaar number to such authority in such form and manner as may be prescribed, on or before a date to be notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette:
Provided that in case of failure to intimate the Aadhaar number, the permanent account number allotted to the person shall be deemed to be invalid and the other provisions of this Act shall apply, as if the person had not applied for allotment of permanent account number.
(3) The provisions of this section shall not apply to such person or class or classes of persons or any State or part of any State, as may be notified by the Central Government in this behalf, in the Official Gazette.
Explanation.—For the purposes of this section, the expressions—
(i) “Aadhaar number”, “Enrolment” and “resident” shall have the same meanings respectively assigned to them in clauses (a), (m) and (v) of section 2 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (18 of 2016);
(ii) “Enrolment ID” means a 28 digit Enrolment Identification Number issued to a resident at the time of enrolment.]
Advocate Shyam Divan, who is representing Dalit activist Bezwada Wilson and retired Army officer Major General Sudhir Vombatkere in their petitions against draconian UIDAI laws, in April 2017, asked the courts, "How can you engraft a provision into the Income Tax Act making it mandatory when the Aadhaar Act itself makes Aadhaar purely voluntary?"
The Supreme Court also said that the government must formulate schemes to prevent the leakage of personal details:
The judgement needs to be carefully scrutinised for its impact on the Aadhaar Act itself, as well as wider implications on the nature of having a "voluntary"provision in the Aadhaar Act being mandated for various services, but we need to remember that the court will prnounce its verdict on the second petition later this month, wherein it will take up issues like bodily autonomy and integrity, among other issues disccused in the course of the hearing.
The government, in its earlier arguments, had tried to defend the Aadhaar-PAN links by stating that the move would help weed out fake and fraudulent financial accounts.
Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi told the two-judge bench, “Today, anybody can get a PAN card with any name on it. A person can get several PAN cards — say, as Mukesh Gupta, then another as Mukesh Kumar Gupta, and a third as M K Gupta, so on and so forth.”
Insufficient as a judicial intervention
While the SC expressed "hope" that security concerns over Aadhaar will be addressed by the legislative, and the authorities involved, it's clearly not forceful an observation binding to bring about any changes, or course correction. Many lawyers and legal experts too have expressed their concerns as far as the impact of this verdict is concerned.
Also read - Aadhaar-PAN mandatory link is about government wanting to make Indians virtual slaves