Aadhaar will soon enter private sector too
The Supreme Court of India has given some outstanding judgments in the recent times with regard to Sabarimala and sexuality minority issues. But then the same court has left a lot of gaps in its judgment on Aadhaar petition. As soon as the Supreme Court says Aadhaar is not needed in some cases, people cannot assume they can do without Aadhaar forever. Those who wish to live without, must be prepared to face a fair amount of challenges in this country. Though SC has disallowed private companies from using Aadhar information or card, it is anybody's guess as to how successful this ruling would be. Will the private sector even be able to face the challenges in this context?
Niti Aayog faces a tricky time ahead because of this ruling. The committee was all set to create an action plan to use the Aadhaar and seeded data as basis to access private information. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has indicated that a bill would be tabled in the parliament, to allow use of Aadhaar in private sector. Payments Council of India is said to be against this and has even been insisting on this with finance and law ministers.
Court has said Aadhaar can be used for other purposes as a collateral document to get Passport, pan card, driver's license and other important documents. In cases of people submitting Aadhaar by choice as proof of address of id, the court has said it would have no issues. But the same court would not allow Aadhaar to be certified by non-governmental organisations. With the judgment, Air India, and other organisations such as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and LIC can accept Aadhaar. But their opponents such as Vistara, Reliance Jio or Kotak Life Insurance etc cannot use the same document as address proof. This helps the public sector organisations and would increase the financial and operational burden on private companies. Who'd bear the cost? obviously, the common person.
This increased burden, especially after the SC verdict, has become a cause of concern and private companies are already considering what they'd need to do in the future course to manage their costs and the market share along with keeping customers happy. For instance, Reliance Jio obtained the details of customers from their Aadhaar and wrote the best success story in telecom history of India. Costs have come down considerably for all private digital payment companies who obtaining required info from Aadhaar data.
This is the reason behind the pressure created by private sector to pass a bill to use Aadhaar for private use. Efforts are on to create conducive reasons to allow its use. Arun Jaitley has been on this job, anticipating the opposition parties would raise a lot of dust on this. Justice A K Sikri had said parts of sec 57 are unconstitutional since they empower private parties to ascertain the identity of persons. This is against the fundamental rights of a person. If a bill is passed as is, opposition party would be able to leverage this step as BJP's hobnobbing with the corporate sector, leading to confusion among poeple.Hence, the government is planning to have the corporate sector answer all the critics and then a bill would be passed to aid the use of data among private parties. So when one vests the power of using or submitting Aadhaar to individuals, and allow private companies to seek submission of this through their means, the government is escaping from its responsibilities and taking the backdoor entry into outing poeple's information on private sector. All the preparations are on. The final Aadhaar show for private sector will be done in a very consistent manner.
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Vinod Tawde seeks apology from Kharge, Rahul through legal notice, warns of defamation lawsuit
Cash-for-vote row
New Delhi, Nov 22: BJP leader Vinod Tawde has demanded an apology from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for making "false and baseless" allegations against him in the cash-for-votes incident in Maharashtra, saying if they don't he would sue them for defamation.
Tawde was accused by Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, a regional party, of distributing Rs 5 crore to woo voters, with its members barging into a hotel room on November 19 in a Mumbai suburb, where the BJP leader was present.
The former Maharashtra minister and BJP national general secretary claimed innocence, saying the alleged amount was not recovered in the probe by the Election Commission and police.
"The Congress only believes in spreading lies, and this incident is a proof of the party's low level politics to dent me and my party's image," Tawde said.
The two Congress leaders and the party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate seized on the row to accuse the BJP of using money power to influence the November 20 assembly polls in the state.
The legal notice sent to the three claimed that they were aware that they were pushing a "totally false story fabricated" by them.
"You all have deliberately, mischievously with the sole intention of damaging the reputation of our client intentionally fabricated the story distribution of money. You all have published false, baseless allegations against our client on various media for tarnishing his image in the eyes of right thinking people in the society," the notice read.
The Congress leaders were in a "great hurry" to damage Tawde's reputation, they did not bother to check the fact and or despite knowing the entire fact they made the false, baseless allegations, it said.
"The entire imputation made by you all are totally false, baseless, malicious and mala fide and as our client is in no way involved in any such illegal activity and as a responsible office bearer of the national political party he is aware of his duties," it added.
The notice demanded an "unconditional apology" to Tawde within 24 hours from the time the receipt of the notice, which was sent on November 21, and published in newspapers and X.
If they do not offer apology, then Tawde will initiate criminal proceedings under Section 356, which covers defamation, of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and also civil proceedings for the damages of Rs 100 crore against the three Congress leaders, the notice said.
