SC flags exclusions under Aadhaar

SC flags exclusions under Aadhaar

Context:

• The Centre on Thursday maintained before the Supreme Court that nobody would be excluded or denied any entitlement due to inability to link Aadhaar.

Court’s opinion:

• The government’s assurance came after Justice D Y Chandrachud, sitting in the bench, asked if it was not their obligation to ensure that ordinary people, especially pensioners and the marginalised sections of the community, were not denied their benefits till an adequate mechanism for authentication of identity under the Aadhaar Act was put in place.
• Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, termed exclusion of people from their rightful entitlements because of biological reasons like old age was of a “permanent nature” unlike exclusion due to infrastructural failure like lack of electricity, Wi-Fi or biometric scanners in certain regions of the country.
• He submitted that the elderly were unable to get their pension because the scanners were unable to read or scan their fingerprints or irises.

UIDAI:

• The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a statutory authority under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (“Aadhaar Act 2016”) .
• It was established on 12 July 2016 by the Government of India, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
• Prior to its establishment as a statutory authority, UIDAI was functioning as an attached office of the then Planning Commission (now NITI Aayog.

Purpose:

• UIDAI was created with the objective to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named as “Aadhaar”, to all residents of India that is

1. robust enough to eliminate duplicate and fake identities, and
2. can be verified and authenticated in an easy, cost-effective way.

Functions:

• Under the Aadhaar Act 2016, UIDAI is responsible for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication, including operation and management of all stages of Aadhaar life cycle.
• Developing the policy, procedure and system for issuing Aadhaar numbers to individuals and perform authentication and also required to ensure the security of identity information and authentication records of individuals.