Losing the checks and balances

By Santosh Bhartiya
Assessing relationship between legislative supremacy and judicial supremacy in India is not a difficult task. The showdown between the Supreme Court and Parliament often becomes public, which may be justifiable, but when the government starts giving cold shoulder to the court’s directives, the government is not only defying court’s order but also committing injustice to it.
The Aadhaar project presents a similar situation. The project is mired in controversy ever since it was rolled out by the Manmohan Singh government. The Supreme Court in its repeated hearings directed governments to hold back the decision of making Aadhaar mandatory till the final decision is made, but the defiance against judiciary that sprang up during Manmohan Singh’s rule continues to hold its ground even today. Manmohan Singh’s raison d’être for making the card mandatory has long been matter of much discussion. At the same time the Supreme Court in its often-repeated remarks pointed out the violation of individual’s privacy the card presents. In fact, the whole projected was initiated to create a strong market base for American multinational companies. The information that the government is collecting through the Aadhaar card is being passed over to the foreign multinational companies and which in turn are making money out of it. While the Government of India is getting nothing, those who initiated the project must have been getting benefit from it. This project is the brain child of Nandan Nilekani.
When the Aadhaar project was being launched the then Chief Minister of Gujarat and current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had made an emphatic case of winding up of the project if his party the BJP comes to power. Manmohan Singh lost power to Narendra Modi, who became the Prime Minister, but the Aadhar project not only continued as usual but pursued more vigorously. Nandan Nilekani had two-hour-long meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and the Indian government immediately forgot the promise made to the public by newly elected Prime Minister. Thereafter the Prime Minister started talking about implementing this project with much gusto. Though the Prime Minister has forgotten a lot of his promises and termed them Jumla, but the aadhaar project was an issue which served personal information of every citizen of India into a platter to the US. As things stand, these data through US companies are always available to the CIA to look into and also vulnerable to be reached in the hands of the enemies of India. Notwithstanding Supreme Court’s directive against making aadhaar mandatory, the Government went far ahead and made it compulsory to such an extent that if somebody forgets to add his bank account with aadhaar, he won’t be able to make any transaction from his bank account. The concerned expressed by the Supreme Court vis-à-vis aadhaar care was shared neither by the ministers nor by the journalists.
Aadhaar card is so dangerous that if the information contained herein reached in the hands of communal troublemakers, they can kill anyone they want to kill on the basis of this data. The card contains data of iris, blood group, fingerprints, face, bank account, mobile number and any other personal information of a citizen needed to track him by our enemies, foreigners or business institutions. These data contain such important and sensitive information as in the next eight years who will hold top posts and who will control the politics and business in the country? We are handing over these data to ambitious business operatives who long to control the world. We are handing over the data to foreign companies and making things easier for our enemies who can pressurize us and make us their mental slaves.
Just after taking responsibility of card preparation by an industrialist, information related to 13 crore people became public. Reports suggest that Reliance Jio is behind all this. Reliance Jio leaked information of 13 crore people to the world without their permission. This is the danger the Supreme Court is apprehensive about and this is the danger the Supreme Court is hearing about.
However, the government appears to be disobeying the Supreme Court on the issue, and linking everything with the Aadhaar card, while the Supreme Court remains a silent spectator. The silence of the court is puzzling because evidences have been produced before the court, highlighting the violation of its order. The rumors has it that the government, using aadhaar card information, has identified the weak spot of Supreme Court judges and brought them under the clutches of its officials. It is also being said that these vulnerabilities have also been passed to foreign powers. That is why the Supreme Court, which does not tolerate slightest contempt, is silent despite such a big contempt and violation of its decisions. This is a very worrying fact. Who is behind all this things? Is it Finance Minister Arun Jaitley or Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself or the only representative of world’s multinational companies in India Nandan Nilekani? Nandan Nilekani, these days, sits in the Prime Minister’s office, which means he is one of the most powerful people in the country who make decisions about the country. Has the Prime Minister’s Office decided that it will auction the privacy of all the people of the country and on the other hand will not pay any attention to institution like Supreme Court on aadhaar related matter and will continue to work on its plan?
The most debilitating part is that whether it is the media, opposition parties, or commentators of the law all are afraid of raising this issue. Therefore, one should be prepared for the situation that from now if the government does anything wrong, the Supreme Court might try to stop it, but it will no longer be guaranteed that the government will accept it. It has almost been clear that the battle is no longer between the supremacy of the Parliament and the Supreme Court, but now perhaps it is clear that the Government of India is supreme, the Supreme Court is not supreme.