New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday a Parliament-approved legislation can restore mandatory linking of biometric ID Aadhaar with mobile phones and bank accounts but did not say if the Government would bring a new law for this. The Supreme Court had last month upheld the Constitutional validity of Aadhaar, the 12-digit biometric based unique identity (UID) number, but restricted its use by private entities like telecom operators for verifying identity of mobile phone user.
Jaitley said that the verdict was a "very sound judgment" as the court accepted that there is legitimate state aim in Aadhaar. "Aadhaar is not a citizenship card," he said here. "Because after all you have a system where you give a lot of government money in form of various support and subsidies to all kinds of people. That was the principle objective of Aadhaar."
The Supreme Court, he said, has upheld most of what Aadhaar does. "What had not been upheld falls in two categories. One is the principle of proportionality that Aadhaar will help in these cases and then do it by an appropriate law. So the whole argument which was given that private companies can't use it, there is Section 57 which says you can authorise others either by law or contract. So what has been struck down is by contract," he said.
The finance minister said that a legal provision through legislation can restore linking of Aadhaar with mobile phones and bank accounts. "By law it can still be done, provided you do it under the adequate provision of law and do it on the basis of that in this field it is necessary," he said. He, however, did not say if the Government plans to bring a law in Parliament for the purpose.
Jaitley said that the Supreme Court has permitted Aadhaar linkage in several areas like income tax, based on "the principle of proportionality".
The Supreme Court declared constitutional the Government's extraordinary attempt to give every resident a biometric ID. It, however, drew a clear line between two kinds of use for biometric authentication — its use for state-provided services like payment of subsidies and taxation records was declared acceptable but its use as authentication tool by private parties like telecom companies and banks was restricted.
'I disagree that sexuality is part of free speech'
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said that he does not agree with the portion of the Supreme Court judgment decriminalising consensual gay sex that calls sexuality a part of free speech, as he feels it raises questions on restraining any form of homosexual or bisexual activity in a school hostel, prison or army frontier. The judgment is fine but "the problem comes when writing these historical judgements, you get carried away and want to be part of history and therefore you go a step further", added Jaitley.
"Because I think that's a little excessive and consequences of that may not be on decriminalisation. Free speech is entirely a different gambit, it can be restrained on the reasons of sovereignty, security, public order and so on and mind you there is tendency of creating new fundamental rights every day." He also differed on a portion of the apex court ruling on adultery.