The Aadhar project of India is a project that has neither a legal backing nor a project evaluation and management support. Naturally, Indian government is now considering scrapping the Aadhar project of India. Aadhar project has been considered to be futile by many experts in India. They have been suggesting that Aadhar project must be suspended till it is made legally valid and constitutionally sound.However, Aadhar project was kept intact despite it lack of utility and illegal manner of implementation. Sooner or later it is going to be scrapped however till than millions of public money would already be lost. Why not the Indian government could scrap the Aadhar project few years back when it was so suggested by the experts.
According to Praveen Dalal, managing partner of techno legal firm Perry4Law and leading techno legal expert of India, Aadhar Project must be supported by a Techno Legal Framework that must be supplemented by robust Cyber Security, Privacy Protection and Data Protection.
In the absence of these Procedural and Constitutional Safeguards, both Aadhar Project and UIDAI are Unconstitutional, says Praveen Dalal. Even if the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 (NIDAI Bill 2010) would have been passed, both Aadhar Project and UIDAI would have “Remained Unconstitutional”, opines Praveen Dalal. We need an altogether different Law than NIDAI Bill 2010 and till such a Constitutional Law is passed, Aadhar Project should be suspended suggests Praveen Dalal.
According to the Aadhar Watch Initiative of India maintained by Praveen Dalal, Aadhar project is suffering from the following illegalities and shortcomings:
(1) Absence of legal framework supporting Aadhar project,
(2) Absence of privacy protections safeguards,
(3) Absence of data protection safeguards,
(4) Possible abuse of Aadhar project as an e-surveillance tool,
(5) Absence of cyber security safeguards to prevent cyber attacks,
(6) Absence of data leakages and data breaches protections,
(7) Mutual disharmony between various governmental agencies and departments.
In the past fake UID cards were freely available to anybody. This undermines the very purpose of the Aadhar number. It has also been reported that home ministry of India is also opposing the Aadhar project. The truth is that Aadhar project is a very dangerous project and it must be scrapped as soon as possible.
However, the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) kept on pushing the project despite ferocious protests all over India. What is more surprising is the fact that UIDAI has been functioning under an executive order of the ministry of planning. This violates all the constitutional principles that are well established in India.
It seems the Indian government is adopting double standards. While responding to the benign call for a jan lokpal law for India, Indian government was very quick to label it as anti democratic and anti parliamentary. Surprisingly, Indian government is finding nothing wrong with an executive order constitution UIDAI that is clearly violating constitutional scheme. It is now for the Indian government to give this issue a serious consideration as Aadhar project cannot be continues in these circumstances.
