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| JK 'ignores' SC ruling, makes Aadhaar mandatory for employees | | | Hyder Ali
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Feb 12: In "violation" of the Supreme Court orders, the Jammu and Kashmir government has made it mandatory for all the government employees to get themselves registered for Aadhaar card or their salaries would be stopped from the coming month.
On February 10, the Finance Department vide order number 35 of 2016, a copy of which is with Early Times, made the Aadhaar based biometric system compulsory for all state government employees.
The order reads that from April 1, 2016 onwards, marking of attendance under Aadhaar Based Biometric System would be compulsory for all category employees including PSU employees, contractual, consolidated, casual workers or any other workers drawing wages in any form from public exchequer.
"In order to ensure the punctuality in the government offices and establishments, hassle free and leakage free distribution of benefits to the various sections of public and to promote transparency and efficiency in the government system, it has been decided to switch over to the Aadhaar based biometric system on or before 31st March 2016," the order reads. "No salary or wages would be drawn in favor of the government employees of any category including PSU employees, contractual, consolidated, casual workers or any other workers drawing wages in any form from public exchequer for the month of March 2016 onwards unless they have enrolled themselves in the Aadhaar Based Biometric System", the government order reads. "Only after the scrutiny of monthly attendance, the DDOs would prepare bill and a certificate in this regard would accordingly be furnished along with the bill to the treasuries concerned," the order adds.
The government has also directed all the pensioners to enroll themselves by obtaining Aadhaar number by March 31 as this would help them to digitally identify themselves in future at the nearest Common Service Centre/Khidmat Centre or any other place having the system installed.
The concerned departmental officers would be responsible for getting enrolled all such beneficiaries in the system for their identification, without which they would not draw any benefit after April 1, 2016, the order further reads.
But legal experts said the order violates the Supreme Court order of 2015 wherein the apex court ruled that getting registered for the Aadhaar card is not mandatory.
On October 16, 2015, the Supreme Court observed that authorities cannot insist on a citizen to produce his Aadhaar card.
A Constitution Bench led by the then Chief Justice of India HL Dattu said use of the Aadhaar card was "purely voluntary and not mandatory." The Bench said the purely voluntary nature of the use of Aadhaar card to access public service will continue till the court takes a final decision on whether the Aadhaar scheme is an invasion on the right to privacy of the citizen.
The interim order came after senior advocates Shyam Divan and Gopal Subramanium said the Aadhaar card scheme was neither backed by law nor administrative decree.
"You have no document of authority, either from Parliament or administrative decision, to collect fingerprints of the citizenry," Divan argued. "Give me 15 minutes. Your Lordships will be aghast and never share your biometrics or opt for Aadhaar," Subramanium urged the Bench also comprising Justices MY Iqbal, CS Nagappan, Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy. The then Chief Justice Dattu had specifically asked Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for UIDAI, to make a statement in open court that "you will not insist till the matter is finally decided here or a legislation is introduced in Parliament".
"Suppose we decide that Aadhaar is purely voluntary and any attempt to make it mandatory would be treated as contempt of court... are you ready to give an assurance or make a statement here to this effect?" the then CJI had asked Rohatgi, who replied in the affirmative.
The legal experts here have questioned the legitimacy of the JK government orders. "This order is sheer violation of the Supreme Court ruling which has clarified that the Aadhaar card is not mandatory for the citizens of India… or does the JK government want to give a contemptuous impression that J&K in not part of India," said a noted lawyer.
He said such negligence on the part of the government was intolerable.
A top official in the Finance department however said the JK government orders do not violate the Supreme court orders. "This is a progressive step to bring in biometric attendance system... Every ruling has a different context(and that ruling pertained to subsidies)," the official told Early Times. |
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