Elvidio Miranda
The Aadhaar card was conceptualised as a voluntary identification document, not meant to be mandatory. However, the BJP government went against the letter and spirit of that concept and imposed that the Aadhaar card be made mandatory for linking with the PAN card and the bank account so as to subjugate the citizens of India.
It is an open secret that with this linking all the accounts of a person will become openly accessible to find out how much money a person has in all his accounts in all the banks. This is an intrusive measure meant to unravel the monies held by law-abiding citizens and goes against the essence of the right to privacy. The Supreme Court has not given a binding verdict on this matter, while having ruled that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. The same is the case of the mandatory linking for demat accounts and for mutual funds. With the linking of these to the PAN card and the Aadhaar card, every amount held by a person in the form of stocks as well as mutual funds have become an open book.
The action in making Aadhaar mandatory is an intrusive means of finding out the finances of an individual, which to a certain extent is private in nature. I have been given to understand that nowhere in the world is an identity document with sensitive bio-metrics such as the finger prints and the iris scan been made mandatory for any purposes. Same is the case with those who have linked their Aadhaar to bank accounts for the purpose of availing the benefits of subsidized LPG cylinders. While the matter is still being considered by the SC on the basis of arguments adduced by those who have challenged the making of Aadhaar card mandatory, the cell phone companies have made it mandatory for everyone to link their mobile phone numbers to Aadhaar.
The circulars of the Reserve Bank of India and the cell phone companies to link Aadhaar cards for various purposes is a violation of the principles of fair treatment to the citizens, for whom the right to privacy is a fundamental right. It is an affront to the sensibilities of law-abiding citizens of India for the party in power to pressurise a very important aspect, which is still under the process of being given a final verdict by the Apex court.
Ninety per cent of the NPAs or bad loans are due to banks by big corporate industries. Many of them should not have even reached the point of bankruptcy, but could have been wound up long time back. Why should smaller borrowers pay back their loans when the big corporates are defaulting to such huge extents? This is an injustice done to the people of India, wherein big loans are being given to the corporate sector without sufficient assets and properties being linked probably because of collusion with the banks’ top brass.
