Testing the limits

The Union Government’s move to force citizens to quote the Aadhaar number in the filing of income tax returns has raised certain issues which have not been adequately dealt with. A failure to link Aadhaar and tax filing can lead to the cancellation of the user’s permanent account number (PAN). Citizens are being asked to make their personal details public by a government which itself is becoming increasingly non-transparent. The surreptitious way the government slipped in crucial changes in the Finance Bill 2017 at the last minute is intriguing. There was almost no debate.  

There are obvious advantages of bringing in transparency in financial deals. Income tax officials can compare citizens' spending with income tax paid and find out evasion, if any. But there is a downside to it. Government machinery will gain access to personal user information such as bank details, education data and health records. The law allows official tapping of phone calls and data usage. The Aadhaar Act has not been subjected to sufficient judicial scrutiny. It permits surveillance of citizens on the pretext of “national security”, which is a vague term undefined in the Act. A citizen suffering the loss of privacy or personal data has no recourse to justice as Section 47 of the Act allows only the Unique Identification Authority of India to file a criminal complaint for the theft of data. The crucial twin issue of privacy and security of personal data has been sidestepped.  

Besides, one of the amendments to the Finance Bill apparently violates the Supreme Court's recent order that had directed it not to make Aadhaar mandatory for citizens except in case of certain specific services. The court is yet to judge the constitutionality of Aadhaar and decide whether privacy is a fundamental right. The government stand on the issue of privacy as stated in the Supreme Court is troubling. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi had contended in the court that “violation of privacy doesn't mean anything because privacy is not a guaranteed right”. The government's open violation of the Supreme Court order and Parliament's failure to flag concerns on Finance Bill amendments should be a cause of concern to all those who value democracy and the rule of law.