I do not understand the mania of making Adhaar compulsory in illegal fashion

​’I do not understand the mania of making Adhaar compulsory in illegal fashion’

– Says Adv. Arvind Datar

Pune, 25 November 2017: ”Adhaar card should not be made mandatory. Other documents for identification- like Voter id, Passport etc. should be enough to be linked with the bank accounts. I do not understand this mania of making Adhaar compulsory in illegal fashion,” expressed Arvind Datar, Senior advocate of Madras High Court.

”If you want Adhaar, take away all other things. Today I must have a Pan Card, Passport & many other identification numbers,” he said. Adv. Datar was speaking on the topic ‘The Right to Privacy- Past, Present and Future’, today at Navalmal Firodia Law College, in a lecture organized by Pune International Centre (PIC).

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, President, PIC, Dr. Vijay Kelkar, Vice President, PIC, Kumar Ketkar, Senior jornalist, Prof. Amitav Malik, Trustee, PIC, Prashant Girbane, Honorary Director, PIC, were present among the dignitaries.

‘The right to left alone must be respected irrespective of the technological improvement,’ Datar quoted. He mentioned several cases & judgments that involved right to privacy in some or the other way. Also the case that he presented & lost in the Supreme Court regarding linking Adhaar with the Pan Card.

”According to the Adhaar act, Adhaar card is for ensuring that the government subsidies go to the correct person. As per the section 3 & 7 of the act,Adhaar is optional. So not everyone need to take Adhaar card. In last year’s budget, the government said that If you do not link Adhaar to your Pan card, your Pan card will be invalidated. One gets a Pan card after doing a thorough check. Now If he or she doesn’t show their Adhaar, their Pan card will get cancelled, which has no point. If the Adhaar is optional in the parent act, then how it can be made mandatory in the Income Tax Act. This was my argument in the case which I lost,” he said.

”Every time answering the debate, the governments points to the terrorism in J & K  & the black money. They say that linking Pan to Adhaar will be useful to weed out fake Pan cards. We argued that, As per the government data, only 0.4 percent of the Pan cards are fake. So why torture 99.6 percent people & ask them to link Pan with Adhaar,” Datar mentioned.

He also mentioned the privacy controversies with the non state actors like Social media.  Datar said that, From the legal standpoint the future will be extremely exciting & challenging time. ”Every technological benefit has a flipside. If you see the history of the constitutional law, It’s a history betweenthe liberty of an individual & the needs of the state,” he said.

About Pune International Centre (PIC)-

Pune International centre is a think tank that works independently with a main objective to create a platform for open discussion and for stimulating debates by mobilizing the intellectual resources. The organization also promotes activities and programs with strong emphasis on involvement of youth so as to help build future leadership and to inspire a new generation to create positive social change.