JOIN USThe Centre on Thursday signalled it was unwilling to buckle under Opposition pressure. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad sought to push the blame on the Congress by saying that Aadhaar was dragged into a legal tangle because of UPA bringing it without legislative support.
Welcoming the Supreme Court’s verdict on right to privacy, Prasad told reporters that it has only “affirmed” the government’s position on the issue which always held the view on having fair, just and reasonable restriction on Aadhaar.
“The Supreme Court has affirmed what the government had said in Parliament while moving the Aadhaar Bill. Privacy should be a fundamental right subject to reasonable restrictions,” the law minister said at a press conference.
The minister stated that the Congress-led UPA government had introduced biometric scheme without any legislative support and due to that the question of the UPA’s Aadhaar was challenged before the judiciary.
“The NDA government ensured that necessary legislation was approved by Parliament,” Prasad asserted.
AG was in consonance
On former Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi’s position before the Supreme Court that citizens don’t have absolute right over their bodies which had sparked a huge debate, the minister tried to come out of it by insisting that the total thrust was in consonance with the findings of the Constitutional bench.
‘Stand upheld’
“It was an argument put forth in the court but the total thrust of the stand of the AG and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during Aadhaar debate in Parliament has been upheld by the Supreme Court,” he said.
Jaitley, as per the press release, during the debate in the Rajya Sabha on Aadhaar Bill, had said, that the legislation “presupposes that privacy is based on the premise and that it is too late in the date to content that privacy is not a fundamental right. So I do except that probably privacy is a fundamental right....”
DH News Service