Activists challenge Aadhaar chief to present evidence

New Delhi: As the Centre has failed to establish Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claims of detection of 4 crore bogus ration cards with the help of 12-digit Aadhaar number, civil society activists have demanded that CEO of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Ajay Bhushan Pandey must hold a public discussion where evidence can be presented of the impact of the mandatory Aadhaar-based biometric authentication on the delivery of public services.

The noted activists — Anjali Bhardwaj, Nikhil Dey, Dipa Sinha and Amrita Johri — wrote to Pandey on August 17, after he attributed "malafide intent" to a press conference organised by them exposing exclusions in the public distribution system (PDS) in Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Delhi after biometric authentication was made mandatory each time the beneficiaries queued up to get ration.

They had also presented the result of two RTI applications, revealing that there was no official data to back the claim of the PM that he had made a statement in the Lok Sabha on February 7.

Pandey had told the media, that saying Aadhaar was responsible for the denial of public benefits, was a "misconstrued fact presented with malafide intent."

The UIDAI chief had also claimed that "if a person is denied (public benefits) because he does not have Aadhaar or he is unable to biometrically authenticate, it is undisputedly a violation of instructions issued by the government and such violators have to be punished".

Responding to this, the activists wrote that they had "little knowledge of any such punishment that might have been ordered and carried out". They demanded that the UIDAI make public "a copy of all such instructions issued by the government, especially in the context of Delhi, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. The copy should also include the punishment that violators are liable to face."