Should private cos face same legal rigour as PSUs: UIDAI counsel

NEW DELHI: Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi digressed from defending Aadhaar and asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to decide at an appropriate time whether public sector undertakings and private sector companies should be dealt with identically when it came to issuance of a direction by the court.

Dwivedi said the public-private divide was fast merging as private companies had entered the defence sector after operating in healthcare, telecom, infrastructure, aviation and power. “What are all these big private ventures? The PSUs are funded through public money. The private players are operating mainly on bank loans, which again is citizens’ money. On both sides, be it private or public sector, we the people are behind these entities,” he said.

“If this is the financial position of both sorts of companies, why only PSUs are amenable to writ jurisdiction of constitutional courts? So, why not the requesting entities (private companies seeking Aadhaar linkage for mobile phones and bank accounts) be not made public functionaries? They have a duty to secure data relating to authentication through Aadhaar, which is intrinsic to right to privacy under Article 21 (right to life),” Dwivedi said.


“The requesting entities are part of the Aadhaar system and are bound by law. So, the court can also issue a mandamus to them for securing data if it feels the Aadhaar Act does not adequately rein them in. These entities can also be prosecuted for violating the mandate of the law and the court,” he added.

The bench of CJI Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan appeared to appreciate Dwivedi’s arguments when it said, “The PSUs are bound by so many supervisions and checks but are asked to compete with the private sector which has no such inhibition or restriction.”

Dwivedi said the Aadhaar Act was framed after a lot of thought. However, he said the court could point out loopholes for the government to correct or it can make corrections itself.