Thursday, September 27, 2018

FEARS PERSIST

Activists who fought against Aadhaar rush to apply for card

Komal.Gautham@timesgroup.com

Chennai: 27.09.2018

Activists who fought against UIDAI will finally apply for Aadhaar following the Supreme Court verdict.

In October 2017, Preeti Mohan, a 34-year-old advocate, filed a petition in the Madras high court and got an interim stay to file her I-T returns without linking her PAN card to the Aadhaar number. Having closely followed the scheme, she believed that the law was framed in a hurry just to see the project through.

“There were several serious flaws in it, including the threat to privacy, and beyond this, the complete power that the state would have over citizens. I filed the writ petition just before the deadline for my tax filing to avoid having to obtain an Aadhaar. The petition subsequently came to be dismissed,” she said.

Rahul Unnikrishnan, an advocate at the high court, filed nearly 10 petitions over the

last two months. “The main opposition was that the Aadhaar act by itself did not make it mandatory for all citizens to apply for it. Later, they amended the income tax act and included section 139AA saying we should quote Aadhaar when filing I-T returns. The act had serious security issues. We did not know what the government would do with our biometric [information]. That is the main reason many people did not take Aadhaar,” he said.

Preethi said she would soon apply for the Aadhaar card asshehadtofileher returnsby October end. Rahul added that his clients too were rushing to send in their applications. “The SC has substantially diluted what data can be collected, and how it can be stored and used. But I am not completely in agreement with the reasons for upholding it for tax purposes and welfare schemes,” Preethi said.

Meanwhile, M K Stalin of DMK has welcomed the verdict, saying, “While upholding sections that enables social inclusion, it has struck down provisions curbing citizens’ rightsto privacy andconsent.”

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