Citizen activists file petition against unique ID authority

BANGALORE: Citizen activists and a consumer rights group have filed a contempt of court petition at the Supreme Court, naming the Unique ID Authority of India, citing ongoing efforts to link the domestic gas-connection subsidies to the unique ID.

The petitioners include VK Somashekhar, managing trustee of of the consumer group Grahak Shakti and Mathew Thomas, a retired armed forces officer.

The petition also names the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and India’s three oil companies that have been asking consumers to submit their ‘Aadhaar number’ as the unique ID is called, in order to get the gas cylinder subsidies transferred directly to their bank accounts.

The petitioners said this linking was in contempt of an interim Supreme Court order of September last year, in which the Supreme Court of India had said no person should suffer for not having the Aadhaar unique ID.