Cobrapost sting reveals Aadhaar cards issued to Bangladeshis in lieu of bribes
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Centre to immediately withdraw any order making Aadhaar cards mandatory to avail benefit under Government schemes and services. The Government’s widely acclaimed scheme suffered yet another blow when a sting operation conducted by investigation portal Cobrapost revealed that Aadhaar sards were issued without any verification to Nepalese and Bangladeshis in lieu of bribes.
Earlier in September last year, the apex court had passed an order to discard the mandatory provisioning of Aadhaar cards when the constitutional validity of the scheme was challenged by a group of public.
A bench of Justices BS Chauhan and J Chelameswar on Monday said that they had received letters from citizens who were harassed and deprived of essential services for want of Aadhaar cards. The comments came while the court was dealing with a petition by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) challenging an order by the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court that required sharing of confidential biometric details obtained under Aadhaar with the CBI.
The Bench clarified if there are any instructions that Aadhaar is mandatory, it should be withdrawn immediately. “I received a lot of letters which say Aadhaar card is mandatory. One letter said his marriage is not registered because of the lack of an Aadhaar card, others suggest they cannot get their properties registered for this reason,” Justice Chauhan said.
“We have already passed orders saying no one should suffer for not having Aadhaar cards. If there are any instructions that Aadhaar is mandatory, withdraw it immediately,” the judges observed. The court even stayed the Goa Bench decision directing sharing of data collected by UIDAI with the CBI.
The Bench said biometric or any other data should not be shared with any authorities unless an “accused” gives consent in writing. The probe agency had sought the data base, including biometrics of persons from Goa, so that those could be compared with the ones obtained from the crime scene for the purpose of investigating rape of a minor girl on a school premises in Vasco.
Meanwhile, the Cobrapost showed that in many cases officers accepted between Rs 500 and Rs 2,500 to issue Aadhaar Cards to applicants without any proof of identification and address.
“In a recently filed RTI query by a former defence scientist and RTI activist, Mathew Thomas, it has been found that UIDAI has not cared to check the antecedents of the companies that have been enlisted to collect biometric data. He alleges that the RTI made it clear that the data is being made accessible to foreign countries as these companies are owned by former CIA and FBI officials. Thus, clearly enough our personal data may just be sold to these companies who may use it in any manner they fancy,” said the press release of Cobrapost.
A video released by the portal showed how in around 12 Aadhaar Card registering centres, mainly in Delhi, Gurgaon and Bhopal, registrations were done on fake names by bribing officials. The reporters posed as immigrated workers from Nepal and Bangladesh. The range of bribe asked by officials for violating the rules of registration was between Rs 500 and Rs 2,500. After receiving money, the officials in the centers allow registration of bribe giver without verifying any data.