SC poses questions to Aadhaar challengers

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked petitioner challenging Aadhaar what difference the assertion of Aadhaar would make in this "extremely networked" society.

"All of our data is anyway with private entities. So does the interpolation of Aadhaar number make any difference?" Justice DY Chandrachud, one of the five judges on the bench, asked the petitioners.

Representing one of the petitioners, senior advocate Kapil Sibal responded that the apex court needed to decide the extent to which a state could seek personal information.

"Yes, we are in a networked world. We have to share information. But to what extent in the networked world should the state seek information, that too, not under many umbrellas but under one. To what extent should private entities be given personal data and to what extent do we protect ourselves?" Sibal said.

To this, Justice Chandrachud queried whether the concern and "danger" of a personal data leak could be avoided if there is a declaration that "personal information collected would only be used for the purpose for which they are collected."

However, Senior advocate Shyam Divan and advocate Vipin Nair, arguing against Aadhaar, said it was the state's responsibility to protect citizens from both non-state and state actors.

There is the possibility of a "scary dystopia" where the state collects personal information to profile citizens and track them, Divan said.

Justice AK Sikri, who was also on the bench, then said that if Aadhaar was constitutionally valid, then the they would have to decide the limit of its uses and access.

"Let us say Aadhaar is per se constitutionally valid. Then we have to decide how far Aadhaar can be used. Should Aadhaar be used only to access subsidies? Is there a constitutional line that should not be infringed? A line when crossed would become violation of privacy," he said.

After the daylong hearing, the top court marked several questions as "central issues" which the petitioners would have to address in their arguments against the constitutional validity of Aadhaar.

However, representing the Centre, Attorney General KK Venugopal informed the court that data protection regime recommended by the Justice BN Srikrishna Committee would be ready by March.

The five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra is hearing the final arguments in the matter that challenged the unique biometric identification scheme.

In light of the privacy judgement delivered by a nine-judge bench last August, the Centre had constituted a 10-member committee headed by former Supreme Court Justice BN Srikrishna to deliberate over and draft the proposed data protection bill. Within months, the Ministry of Electronics and Technology (MEITy) released a white paper on the Data Protection framework.

Court will continue to hear arguments tomorrow.