The Aadhaar verdict is disappointing, but I am not dejected or defeated by today’s verdict.
Disappointed because apart from striking down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act the majority opinion provides little relief to the poor from Aadhaar (under Section 7), in terms of accessing essential entitlements. On this, it is disappointing that the judges who have signed the majority opinion have believed the government’s false assurances that nobody will be denied their entitlements due to Aadhaar. We know that the governments have been blatantly violating the Supreme Court’s orders since 2013, and in its present form, exclusion is built into the Aadhaar eco-system.
We are emboldened in our struggle against the Aadhaar project by the observations made by Justice Chandrachud. Like him, we believe that the passage of the Aadhaar Act was as a Money Bill “a fraud in the Constitution” but more importantly, that the project is unconstitutional in its ‘entirety’.
We also take hope from all the democratic channels open to us: like the battle against Section 377, wherein 2013 the Supreme Court had upheld the section but in 2018 (earlier this month) struck it down, we hope that one day Justice Chandrachud’s verdict will be the majority and unanimous opinion.
Dr Reetika Khera is an associate professor (Economics and Public Systems) at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad,
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