Unless SC stays it, Aadhaar law will prevail: Ravi Shankar Prasad -Governance Now

Unless SC stays it, Aadhaar law will prevail: Ravi Shankar Prasad

If a parliament enacts a law and unless the court stays the operation of the law, this law will hold the field, says minister

GN Bureau | April 10, 2017

#Aadhaar #Ravi Shankar Prasad #parliament #law #supreme court

Law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday said that the interim orders of the supreme court on Aadhaar delivered in 2015 are meant for an "interim arrangement" and "it is not a judgement".

Responding to the questions in the Rajya Sabha, the minister said: "Some of our congress friends want to paint Aadhaar as the biggest tragedy of the country, and I disagree with them.”

He said that when the SC gave orders -- and the dates are August 11, 2015 and October 15, 2015 –“pervading a set of subsidies to be given directly, there was no Aadhaar law then. At that point in time the biggest argument in time in the court was that there is no statutory backing and you were taking biometrics of crore of people. And yes Jairam Ramesh you were wrong then. By executive order you can’t take so many biometrics. We needed a statutory enactment.”

He added that the second argument was privacy. “Because there is no executive order, there was no mechanism available. Now Sir, day in and day out I am asked a question in both houses why are you exceeding the judiciary….We are law making body. We are a sovereign body. We govern the country. We should seek accountability. Here is a case where parliament has done a robust law Aadhaar and it is completely robust. Legally speaking the law is well settled. That the parliament can remove the lacunae which the court points out.

The minister went on to say that the Aadhaar Act carried forward the whole architecture, “how whole biometric shall be done under what conditions, under what accountability. And whole architecture is available, it’s not the ecosystem, Jairam Ramesh”.

“If that is there, there is a law, there is no stay from the SC and we are being governed by the mandate of an Aadhaar Act, 2016, passed by the parliament. I stand by the sovereignty of the parliament for law making. Now whole of Aadhaar ecosystem is governed by law.

“And my understanding of law is very clear. That an interim order is only for the purpose of interim arrangement, till the parliament steps in. It is not a judgement. It has been referred to nine bench or seven bench. May be this law also be reconsidered. But I am clear that if a parliament enacts a law and unless the court stays the operation of the law, this law will hold the field.”

Comments

Other News

Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure released

The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development’ was released in New Delhi on Monday. The Task Force was led by the

How the Great War of Mahabharata was actually a world war

Mahabharata: A World War By Gaurang Damani Sanganak Prakashan, 317 pages, Rs 300 Gaurang Damani, a Mumbai-based el

Budget expectations, from job creation to tax reforms…

With the return of the NDA to power in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are now on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s full budget for the FY 2024-25. The interim budget presented in February was a typical vote-on-accounts, allowing the outgoing government to manage expenses in

How to transform rural landscapes, design 5G intelligent villages

Futuristic technologies such as 5G are already here. While urban users are reaping their benefits, these technologies also have a potential to transform rural areas. How to unleash that potential is the question. That was the focus of a workshop – “Transforming Rural Landscape:

PM Modi visits Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh in Moscow

Prime minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by president Vladimir Putin, visited the All Russian Exhibition Centre, VDNKh, in Moscow Tuesday. The two leaders toured the Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh. The Rosatom pavilion, inaugurated in November 2023, is one of the largest exhibitions on the histo

Let us pledge to do what we can for environment: President

President Droupadi Murmu on Monday morning spent some time at the sea beach of the holy city of Puri, a day after participating in the annual Rath Yatra. Later she penned her thoughts about the experience of being in close commune with nature. In a message posted on X, she said: