Supreme Court has accepted AIKS application for intervention in Aadhaar Act case

AIKS application in the Aadhaar Case- writ petition (Civil) No 342 of 2017 in the matter of Shanta Sinha and anther Vs Union of India and others has been accepted by the Supreme Court with the intervention application number 6666/18 dated 15th January, 2018. Advocate on Record Reshmitha Ramachandran has filed the application. Senior lawyer of Supreme Court Adv P V Surendra Nath will represent AIKS. The Constitution Bench of Supreme Court will hear the case on 17th January, 2018.

The provisions of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act 2016 are used by the Government of India and Private parties alike for purpose other than the targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services. This has created umpteen miseries and hardships for the poor farmer community in India. Aadhaar is made mandatory to access a host of farm sector schemes and programs.

The Aadhaar is mandatory for availing soil health card, crop insurance including Pradhan Mantrhi Fasal Bima Yojana and fertilizer subsidies. The result is that many needy sections like farmers, labourers and Adivasis are denied many essential subsidies, benefits and services due to non-linking of Aadhaar.

A large majority of manual labourers and farmers in India, due to the rough exterior of fingers caused by constant hard work, got bad quality of finger prints and hence cannot get an Aadhaar number, even if they wish for it. This happens despite proviso to Section 7 of Chapter III of the Aadhaar act mandating that if Aadhaar number is not assigned to an individual he/she will be offered alternate and viable means of identification.

Hence AIKS has submitted to the Supreme Court that, linking of Aadhaar number for essential services, benefits and subsidies at least in the case of such farmers, labourers and Adivasis to be excluded.

The petition has stated that the farmer community in the country is in grave trouble because of mismatch of numbers with land records, bank accounts and biometrics with Aadhaar. In rural ares authentication per person takes lot of time due to poor connectivity.

In Jharkhand an eleven year old girl named Santhosh Kumari died of hunger and malnutrition in September, 2017 as her mother could not get Aadhaar card which was made mandatory by the state government for food rations. Denial of ration is happened to large number of poor households all over the country. Hence linking of Aadhaar with PDS needs to be excluded.

Released by

R C Yadav,

For AIKS Office