UIDAI files FIR against The Tribune, reporter

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 7

A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged by a deputy director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) with the Delhi Police Crime Branch cyber cell yesterday against The Tribune and its reporter Rachna Khaira, Joint Commissioner of Police Alok Kumar (Crime Branch) said today.

The FIR also names Anil Kumar, Sunil Kumar and Raj, all of whom were mentioned in The Tribune report as the people Khaira contacted in the course of her investigation, the officer said.

 “An FIR was lodged with the Crime Branch’s cyber cell under Sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 471 (using forged document) of the IPC, Section 66 of the IT Act and Section 36/37 of the Aadhaar Act,” he said.

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The complainant, BM Patnaik, who works with UIDAI’s logistics and grievance redressal department, in his FIR wrote: “An input has been received through The Tribune dated January 3 that the ‘The Tribune purchased’ a service being offered by anonymous sellers over WhatsApp that provided unrestricted access to details for any of the more than one billion Aadhaar numbers created in India thus far.”

In a fresh statement today, the UIDAI maintained that it “respects free speech, including the freedom of the press and media... however, filing an FIR with full details of the incident should not be viewed as UIDAI targeting the media or the whistleblowers or shooting the messenger”.

It went on to say: “It has to be understood that whenever a crime is noticed, the person concerned is required to report in the form of an FIR in which the entire details of the crime and the incident have to be disclosed to the police.

“The full details of the incident, as available, need to be provided with the names of persons known or unknown connected with the incident in the FIR complaint so that the police or the investigating agency can take up a full and fair investigation. 

“Further, it does not necessarily mean that everyone mentioned in the FIR is a culprit unless after a thorough and fair investigation the person is charge-sheeted and proved to be guilty beyond doubt in the court of law. But all those who have been there in the chain of incident in which the crime has been committed have to be mentioned, including unknowns, in the FIR so the police can make proper investigation.”

Citing the views of the Supreme Court in another matter, the UIDAI said the judgment had underlined the basic principle that “a crime does not stand obliterated merely because its commission is claimed to be in public interest”.