Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Aadhar And UIDAI Are Undemocratic Says Praveen Dalal

In this Guest Column Praveen Dalal maintains that the government of India is imposing unconstitutional and undemocratic projects like Aadhar, Natgrid, CCTNS, etc without any legal framework and parliamentary approval.

The corruption ridden and shameful Commonwealth Games debacle is not yet over and the government of India has committed another blunder. Congress led government launched the bound to be failure Aadhar project/UID project. It is headed by Nandan Nilekani as the chairman of unique identification authority of India (UIDAI).

Unfortunately, the duo of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi are trying to extend their support for another Anti National Project named as Aadhar Project of India or UID Project of India. But even their support could not save these unconstitutional and undemocratic projects as public opinion is absolutely against these projects.

Both Aadhar Project and UIDAI are unconstitutional project and unconstitutional authority. Neither the Aadhar Project nor the UIDAI are governed by any Legal Framework nor are they under Parliamentary Scrutiny, says Praveen Dalal.

As a face saving exercise, the Union Cabinet has casually granted its approval to the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 (NIDAI Bill 2010) with great disregard to the Civil liberties of Indians, especially Privacy Rights of Indians. Even after this approval, both Aadhar Project and UIDAI are still “Unconstitutional and Illegal”.

There should not be any action upon UID Cards and Aadhar Project till proper safeguards are at place. Indian government is encroaching upon the regime of Indian Parliament and is wasting crores of public money without “Parliamentary Approval”, says Praveen Dalal.

It is high time to scrap the Aadhar project and UIDAI till proper laws and adequate civil liberty safeguards are established by Indian government.