New Delhi: The Supreme Court today ruled that the government’s Aadhaar scheme empowers people on the society margins and allows them to a live a life of dignity and this is the reason that far outweighs the harm. The Supreme Court gave a majority judgment that called the national identity card “constitutionally valid” but under some conditions. The Court turned down the argument of exclusion and said that for the “exclusion of a minimal three percent, the 97 percent who will benefit due to inclusion cannot be denied it; “One can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” said the judges.

From now on, after the apex court order, private companies cannot insist on Aadhaar data and in the same way banks and phone companies cannot demand Aadhaar-linking for the continuation of their services, said a five-judge constitutional bench. However, the court allowed the linking of Aadhaar card to the citizen’s PAN (Permanent Account Number) information for the filing of tax returns.

The court further said that there is no compulsory usage of Aadhaar for school admissions. “No child shall be denied benefits for the want of Aadhaar,” the judges said.

“Aadhaar gives dignity to marginalized sections, which outweighs the harm,” said the court. The court verdict was for a total of 27 petitions that challenged the constitutional validity of the national identity card and called it an outright violation of the right to privacy.

The court further said “very, very minimal data” is needed to be collected for Aadhaar, and the documents required to be furnished for Aadhaar are also a proof of identity.

More than one billion Indians have already enrolled themselves for the Aadhaar scheme, and it is seen as a secure form of digital identification for Indian citizens to help them to get government services.

Earlier to the ruling, Aadhaar card with 12 digit Unique Identification Number was made compulsory to be used for bank accounts, PAN cards, cellphone services, driving licenses and passport too. It was elevated to be the most reliable source of proof of identity and residence and was meant to override all other prior identity proofs.

The Supreme Court ruling all concerns like the issue of privacy, data security and recourse for citizens in the case of data leaks.

In their plea, petitioners had argued that Aadhaar, which is built on a mammoth biometric database linked to an individual’s face, fingerprints and iris scans, cannot be termed to be mandatory. They said that the huge Aadhaar database can easily be compromised and pointed out a law, which says that anything that “impacts human life can’t remain a law”.

The government at the Centre had defended its stance over the usage of Aadhaar by private agencies too on several grounds and said that the biggest benefit is to ensure proper distribution of benefits to million and that it helps in siphoning of funds. The government had insisted that Aadhaar data is safe and cannot be breached.

The Centre had defended Aadhaar on several grounds – the biggest being that it ensured proper distribution of benefits to millions and prevented siphoning of funds. The government and the UIDAI had insisted that Aadhaar data is safe and cannot be breached. Prime Minister had said that Aadhaar represented the march of technology in this ear and whoever opposes it “have lagged behind in technology — either they cannot understand or are purposely spreading lies”.

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