Will challenge verdict, says another early petitioner

The Supreme Court’s verdict on Wednesday declaring Aadhaar as “constitutionally valid” has not gone down well with many, including Colonel (retired) Mathew Thomas, one of the early petitioners in the case.

“It is a poor judgement and avoids critical issues. The verdict only shows the ignorance of judges on what the biometric is,” said Thomas, who recently authored the book ‘The Sham ID, called ‘Aadhaar’: Hoax of the Century”.

“We will challenge the verdict,” he said. Colonel (retired) Mathew Thomas is among 30 early challengers along with Justice (retired) KS Puttaswamy, who had petitioned against the Aadhaar system stating that it breaches the fundamental right to privacy.


“If there is some proliferate in government schemes such as theft of ration or whatever, it needs to be investigated. How does collecting biometric help?” he pointed out.

Thomas alleged that the Centre collecting personal data of citizens including the army and police personnel and handing them over to foreign agencies could well be termed “espionage or treason”.

“Wednesday’s judgement, however, does not speak about this. The judgement is also contradictory as Aadhaar is being made mandatory to get PAN card and file income tax returns but bankers cannot collect Aadhaar. What is the rationale behind this,” he asked.