[I. <<Among the more prominent faces at the helm of the fight is one Padma Shri awardee, three Ramon Magsaysay awardees, three former Indian army personnel, a retired high court judge, a parliamentarian and the entire government of West Bengal.>>
(Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.) II. <<From the first petition [in the Supreme Court], which challenged the Aadhaar juggernaut in 2012, to the post-privacy period in 2017, the government of India will now have to defend itself against the 30 challenges which have been submitted to the Supreme Court on the Aadhaar project on a range of aspects. In all, the government has issued about 139 notifications calling for the linking of Aadhaar to various aspects of life. This figure was presented to the Supreme Court on Wednesday by Shyam Divan, counsel for some of the petitioners.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. II. below.)] I/II. https://thewire.in/215107/orchestrated-wine-cheese-campaign-aadhaar-sc/ Who Is Running the ‘Orchestrated Wine And Cheese Campaign’ Against Aadhaar in the SC? BY ANOO BHUYAN ON 18/01/2018 • 3 COMMENTS Defenders of Aadhaar have called opposition to it an organised campaign stemming from paranoia. But a look at the petitioners proves it is anything but. One cannot confirm if any of these petitioners, who have all submitted bulky petitions, do in fact drink wine or/and eat cheese. Credit: File photo New Delhi: Just last week, UIDAI’s former chairman Nandan Nilekani called the opposition to Aadhaar, an “orchestrated campaign”. A few days before that, an editorial in an Indian news portal said the opposition comes from “activists of the upper crust, upper class, wine ‘n cheese, Netflix-watching social media elite – mostly of the Left”. And in an interview with The Wire last year, former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said, “This paranoia is coming from a few people in a country of 150 crore.” Nilekani, the architect of the Aadhaar project, has also spoken at length in reference to a major story in The Tribune that took on global resonance on how India’s entire Aadhaar database is being breached and leaked through various vendors. Among the more prominent faces at the helm of the fight is one Padma Shri awardee, three Ramon Magsaysay awardees, three former Indian army personnel, a retired high court judge, a parliamentarian and the entire government of West Bengal. And yet who are these people who apparently “drink wine, eat cheese”, and also make a commitment to the Supreme Court to spend money and time (over six years for some), only to spite Nilekani’s Aadhaar project? The protesters A look at the 30 challenges filed before the Supreme Court and the people behind them casts doubts on the accusations that the ‘wine and cheese’ lot have no understanding of base realities. In fact, by simply looking at the various sections of society those opposed to the project belong to, it becomes clear that this isn’t an organised and ‘orchestrated’ campaign, but a motley bunch of individuals who have been tagged together by the Supreme Court on a now bloated Aadhaar petition. The earliest petition (by retired Justice Puttaswamy) has been plodding along for six years, since 2012, and 11 others out of the 30, joined the fight the very next year. Also read: Aadhaar Isn’t Just About Privacy. There Are 30 Challenges the Govt Is Facing in Supreme Court One cannot confirm if any of these petitioners do in fact drink wine or/and eat cheese, but from reading their bulky submissions, they appear have committed themselves to a cause that they truly believe interferes with the lives of the Indian people. Justice (retired) Puttaswamy: At 92, Puttaswamy is one of the oldest living petitioners in the Supreme Court, and the oldest petitioner in the Aadhaar case. He was born in 1926 and enrolled as an advocate in 1952. By 1977, he was appointed a judge of the Karnataka high court. His challenge, a path he put himself on in 2012, is the first challenge to the Aadhaar case. The now historic privacy judgement delivered in August 2017, takes its name from his challenge. Bezwada Wilson: Wilson has been the driving force behind India’s efforts at providing dignity, security and emancipation to manual scavengers who risk their lives while cleaning drains and latrines. Manual scavengers, who largely belong to the ‘lower caste’ in India, face stigma and exclusion. Wilson is not new to long-fought and hard-won public interest litigations and has fought a case which led to the government to pass laws for the prohibition of the employment of manual scavengers. In 2016, he received the Ramon Magsaysay award. Major General (retired) SG Vombatkere: Vombatkere retired as a major general of the Indian Army after 35 years of service. He is now over 70 was awarded the Visishta Seva Medal by the President of India in 1993. He is a key petitioner in this case along with Bezwada Wilson. Their submission says it is “wider” than Puttaswamy’s and calls for the Aadhaar Act to be declared a violation of Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Indian constitution and asks that no one be denied any service on account of Aadhaar. They have also asked the court to direct that all data collected under Aadhaar by the public and private sector be destroyed. They have challenged the National Population Register and Aadhaar’s link. Shantha Sinha: Shantha Sinha was the first chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and served two consecutive terms (2007 to 2013). She has also been on various other government committees on national integration, right to education, mid-day meals and adult education. Her work on the ground in Andhra Pradesh was directed at rescuing children from child labour and admitting them to government schools. She also received the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2003 and the Padma Shri in 1998. Kalyani Menon Sen: Sen is a feminist scholar and has been an activist for women’s rights for over 25 years. She has worked with the United Nations Development Programme, advising on gender related issues. Sinha and Sen are co-petitioners in their case. Some of their prayers are similar to Wilson’s and Vombatkere’s. They’ve also moved court seeking that “accounts of current bank account holder will not be made in-operational and future applicants will not be coerced to submit their Aadhaar numbers.” They’ve petitioned the court similarly for the government’s order on linking mobile numbers to Aadhaar. Aruna Roy: Roy was briefly a bureaucrat in the Indian Administrative Service (1968 to 1975) but resigned and is now known for her nearly 40 years of work with the rural poor in Rajasthan and ‘Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan’ which she runs. She was also a key figure in the movement which led to India passing the Right to Information Act as well as the Right to Food. She was a member of the UPA’s National Advisory Council for five years and was instrumental in the passage of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. Along with Wilson and Sinha, Roy has also received the Ramon Magsaysay award. Nikhil Dey: Dey is a long-time colleague of Aruna Roy, a co-founder of the ‘Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan’ and a co-petitioner with her on this case. With Roy, he too has worked on the right to information, food and employment in India. Their petition saw every state and union territory of India being made a respondent. “The present experimentation would undoubtedly result in social exclusion by depriving persons of the fundamental rights and also putting at stake vast sums of tax payer’s money,” says their petition. Major General (retired) SCN Jatar: Jatar served with the Indian Army from 1954. He commanded an engineer regiment in India’s 1971 war in the Poonch Sector (Jammu and Kashmir) and was the commander of infantry brigades in the Kashmir Valley and Rajasthan dessert, from 1977 to 1981. He has been appointed to several government committees and was also the Chairman at ONGC Videsh Limited and Oil India. His petition saw the Election Commission and Reserve Bank of India appear as respondents. Colonel (retired) Mathew Thomas: Thomas, who is around 80, retired as Colonel from the Indian Army and has seen military action in Nagaland, China and Pakistan. In 2014, he was invited to address a BJP parliamentary panel, where he explained various issues around the Aadhaar scheme. He has asked the court to direct an investigation into the role of foreign and private companies in the collection of biometric data of Indians. Supporting material in the form of research has been submitted to the court by Reetika Khera (professor at IIT Delhi), Jean Dreze (co-author with Amartya Sen of An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions), Jude Terence D’souza (securities system specialist in Mumbai), Anand Venkatanarayanan (data security expert in Bangalore), Samir Kelkar (security consultant) and Anumeha Yadav (journalist, formerly at Scroll.in). II. https://thewire.in/215017/aadhaar-privacy-government-supreme-court/ Aadhaar Isn’t Just About Privacy. There Are 30 Challenges the Govt Is Facing in Supreme Court BY ANOO BHUYAN ON 18/01/2018 • LEAVE A COMMENT The number of cases against Aadhaar have bloated since 2012. As hearings begin again before the apex court, a look at what the cases are. Supreme Court. Credit: PTI New Delhi: The Aadhaar case has bloated. Hearings on the case, that has been on hold since 2015, once again began in the Supreme Court on Wednesday with the petitioner’s arguments. With the government finding a way to make Aadhaar all-encompassing, the Aadhaar case has bloated to about 30 petitions and six interventions which the government faces today. >From the first petition, which challenged the Aadhaar juggernaut in 2012, to the post-privacy period in 2017, the government of India will now have to defend itself against the 30 challenges which have been submitted to the Supreme Court on the Aadhaar project on a range of aspects. In all, the government has issued about 139 notifications calling for the linking of Aadhaar to various aspects of life. This figure was presented to the Supreme Court on Wednesday by Shyam Divan, counsel for some of the petitioners. What are the 30 challenges to Aadhaar? Two of the most major legislative and legal turning points in the Aadhaar saga were the enactment of the Aadhaar Act in March 2016, and the privacy judgment in August 2017. In parliament, the Aadhaar Act was pushed through as a money bill and thus passed only in the Lok Sabha. Prior to this, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments had been expanding the Aadhaar for years, just on the basis of executive government orders with no sanction of parliament. In the Supreme Court, the right to privacy was upheld unanimously by a nine-judge bench in 2017. Privacy is one of the major considerations with regards to the Aadhaar project, the other being the denial of rights due to Aadhaar. It makes sense to thus examine the challenges to Aadhaar with reference to these two major turning points. The challenges to Aadhaar began six years ago, in 2012. The programme was first challenged during the Congress government and newer challenges have been tagged on over the years, including under the BJP government. The first challenge to Aadhaar was filed in 2012 by retired justice K Puttaswamy, former judge in the Karnataka high court. Puttaswamy’s name will now forever be associated with the historic privacy judgment in August 2017. Then, 2013 was a year of heavy challenges, with eight new petitions being filed. Four challenges were subsequently filed in 2014 and five in 2015. Another 12 challenges have cropped up since the government passed the Aadhaar Act in 2016. Many of them have challenged the Act in its entirety. Other petitions that have gathered interest include the ones filed by S.G. Vombatkere, Aruna Roy, Shantha Sinha, Kalyani Menon Sen, Binoy Viswam, Mathew Thomas and interventions by parliamentarian Rajeev Chandrasekhar and the Centre for Civil Society. Five petitions have been filed by Indian Oil Corporation Limited. The state of West Bengal has also challenged the government of India’s Aadhaar Act. One petition has in fact been filed by the Aadhaar’s governing body itself – the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), challenging a Bombay high court order which directed the UIDAI to submit biometric information of those accused in criminal trials to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). There have also been six interventions admitted by the court. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, member of parliament from Bangalore, has filed an intervention in Aruna Roy’s case and the Centre for Civil Society has filed one for Puttaswamy’s case. Credit: Shome Basu What are these 30 petitions challenging? Several petitions have challenged the constitutionality of the entire Act and its associated programme. For example, Shantha Sinha’s petition has challenged the Act and the tens of notifications which the government has issued under section 7 of the Aadhaar Act. These notifications have made Aadhaar virtually “mandatory” for several government services. Others are challenging more specific issues such as Aadhaar as a tool of surveillance, its interference with federalism and its role in causing exclusion and denial of rights. Also read: The Different Ways in Which Aadhaar Infringes on Privacy Petitions currently before the Supreme Court have also challenged the seeding of Aadhaar with the National Population Register, the government circular which made Aadhaar verification necessary for SIM cards, the recent amendment in the Income Tax Act which asked for the linking of PAN cards with Aadhaar, the amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act which also mandated Aadhaar and the use of Aadhaar for various ’Know Your Customer’ protocols, West Bengal is the only state to come forward and challenge the entire Act as well. How did we get here? In 2015, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court was hearing a clutch of about 21 petitions challenging different aspects of the Aadhaar. It was here that Mukul Rohatgi, the then Attorney General, told the court that India did not actually have a fundamental right to privacy and that the law at the time had some amount of judicial disagreement which would have to be clarified first. In an interview with The Wire last year, he said, “I did not mean that – that privacy is nothing.” But the bench took Rohatgi seriously and referred the matter of privacy to a rare nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court. That took nearly two years to form. The delay turned out to be a bonanza for the government, as, in the meantime, it managed to ram the Aadhaar Act through as a money bill in 2016. It was passed only in the Lok Sabha where the BJP has a majority. Around this time last year, the government began to frenetically issue office orders linking Aadhaar to various rights – entitlements, benefits and subsidies – which are guaranteed to Indian citizens. The number of notifications stands at 139, according to the petitioners. This is apart from several notifications issued by state governments as well. Private companies such as PayTm, Amazon and Facebook have also found ways to incorporate Aadhaar data into their products. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
