Destroy The Aadhaar

The Aadhaar Scam was launched by UPA 1 formally through a notification on 28 Jan, 2009 1. I call it Aadhaar Scam not Aadhaar Scheme because it is a scam at every step, right from this first formal step. This Executive Notification gave Planning Commission powers of execution and budget which it can never have.

1. Nehru government created Planning Commission by a mere 'Resolution' 2 without any backing of Constitution or Legislation passed by Parliament. Planning Commission has always been such a non-democratic non-statutory body, right till the time Modi Government dismantled it few years ago.
2. Planning Commission's functions outlined in Nehru's 'Resolution' 2 were merely analytical & intellectual, in advisory role to the government. So not making it a statutory body was ok. Statutory bodies with democratic mandate would actually decide whether to execute advice of Planning Commission or not. Modern functions of Planning Commission 3 before it was dismantled* were also consistent with original ones in Nehru's 'Resolution'.

*Modi's Niti Aayog is much much worse. It is non-statutory & non-democratic like Planning Commission. But to make it worse, its official functions 25 actually list wide scope, ambiguous dictatorial executive powers with no legal check in last 2 points under 1.(i).

1. Does 'focus on' tech upgrade & capacity building mean advisory role or actually doing it?
2. Doesn't matter. Next point covers anything and everything that needs to be done for 'national development agenda' including national security. Perhaps NITI Ayog can be our dictator who plans or even executes wars?

So the kind of executive or budgetary functions we said Planning Commission didn't have for Aadhaar, those and more have been officially been given to Niti Aayog. No wonder. Sonia-Manmohan Singh abused Nehru's non-statutory Planning Commission beyond its official functions while Modi replaced it with an actual illegal dictatorial abomination having such functions without statutory backing,by similar by 'resolution'. True to its nature, Amitabh Kant, the CEO of this dictatorial body wants to replace all cards and ATM cash by the disaster Aadhaar Scam 26

So anyway the Aadhaar Scam started with scammy illegal baby steps of giving dictatorial powers to UIDAI as an 'attached office' to the non-statutory Planning Commission, beyond any democratic oversight, by a mere executive notification. This was actually a very 'appropriate start' for Aadhaar because ultimate aim of Aadhaar is to kill democracy, create full dictatorship in India. And now another dictatorial non-statutory body NITI Aayog seems keen to take stewardship of Aadhaar Scam to uglier heights 27.

After such a scammy notification with absolutely no fig leaf cover of legislative backing, UPA's UIDAI started issuing Aadhaar scam numbers to Indians. Soon, they also started insisting on needing Aadhaar for PDS, LPG susbsidy, and gradually for more and more government services. Sheila Dixit's Delhi government even made it mandatory for ALL government services including even marriage or property registration 24. After all India had to be made a dictatorship fast!

But our democratic ethos is very robust and vibrant. Alert citizens started filing a slew of petitions in various courts against Aadhaar on various grounds. The first petition was filed by a retired judge Justice Puttaswamy & an advocate. As more petitions came in, the Supreme Court felt that most of petitions against Aadhaar raised similar questions and started clubbing most of them with the first petition filed by Justice Puttaswamy. Various cases in lower courts were also transferred to SC. Now whenever these cases get heard by SC, they get heard together.

To cut to the chase, Supreme Court issued the first interim order in Puttaswamy case on 23rd September 2013. This order made it very clear Aadhaar cannot be mandatory even if any authorities issue such orders. This interim order was upheld, reiterated, reinforced in all subsequent hearings and interim orders, right up to the last interim order by a 5 judge Constitutional Bench on 15th October 2015. By this point government had obtained SC's permission to use Aadhaar for a few select schemes, but only if the scheme beneficiary voluntarily allows govt to use Aadhaar.

I may try to put together original links to SC orders on government websites later. Some of those links I had no longer work. But thankfully CIS India 22 has uploaded these interim orders. Below reference 23 links to all SC interim orders on Aadhaar they uploaded. The list is missing judgements on some other Aadhaar cases, not linked to Puttaswamy main case, but we don't need them to understand ways to fight Aadhaar.

The orders given by 5 judge Constitutional Bench were also interim orders only because government insisted Indian Citizens do not have a Fundamental Right to Privacy. This right was one of the pillars of Justice Puttaswamy's case. Government made this claim on basis of a comment in very old judgement by an 8 judge bench. After that judgement Fundamental Right to Privacy was upheld for decades in various verdicts. But to examine or overturn the 8 judge verdict, SC needed to form a larger Constitutional Bench. Awaiting the formation of a 9 judge Constitutional Bench, the main Aadhaar cases (tied to Justice Puttaswamy case) were stalled for nearly 2 years after 15th October 2015 interim order!

While Aadhaar cases were stuck in a limbo like this, Modi government brought in the Aadhaar Bill. The bill was introduced by the President Mukherjee as a Money Bill fraud on the Constitution, which need not be passed by Rajya Sabha. Petitions against Aadhaar Bill as Money Bill fraud exist but have not been heard yet. The Aadhaar Bill was passed, received President's assent and most provisions of this Aadhaar Act were notified to be in force from 12th July 2016 and 12th September 2016. We will understand the Money Bill fraud on Constitution and betrayal of Indian citizens by President Pranab Mukherjee in later articles.

After this, the government started pretending Aadhaar Act empowers it to override the standing interim orders of the Supreme Court. But was it really so? Not at all! On 14th September 2016, Supreme Court heard another case against mandatory Aadhaar imposition for some scholarship and upheld the interim orders that Aadhaar can't be mandatory. This was many months after Aadhaar Act was assented and first batch of Aadhaar Act provisions came into force, and also 2 days even after the second batch of Aadhaar Act provisions came into force. This order is also available in Reference 23

In spite of this, the rogue government kept issuing circular after circular making Aadhaar mandatory for welfare & various other government services & functions, in open Contempt of Court. In budget session 2017 Parliament even passed a legislation mandating Aadhaar linking with PAN and making Aadhaar mandatory for tax returns too. Petition was nearly immediately filed against this due to tax return deadlines and it was heard, as we will see.

Meanwhile a strange case was heard in SC, filed by some foundation, for mobile SIM owner reverification citing security reasons. 2 judge SC bench issued a vague order. Department of Telecom (DoT) creatively misinterpreted it as needing mandatory Aadhaar reverification of all mobile connections. However even if we ignore SC interim orders by larger 5 judge bench and ignore lack of clear connection between DoT order and the 2 judge bench judgement, the DoT order specifies no consequences of not reverifying/linking with Aadhaar

Government also tried another type of mischief against standing SC orders by making Aadhaar mandatory for bank accounts through Prevention of Money Laundering Rules change notification on 1st June 2017, a form of 'secondary legislation' or 'delegated legislation' by executive under the powers provided by main Prevention of Money Laundering Act of legislature. This also cannot override SC interim orders, and also has its own loopholes as we will see later. So avoid hurrying making this very dangerous linking. It can get your money robbed.

For petition against Aadhaar-PAN linkage, the petitioners agreed to fight the case without referring to Privacy Right, because otherwise it would be clubbed with main Puttaswamy case which is based on this right, and would get stalled awaiting Constitutional Bench on Privacy Right. That resulted in an absurd judgement where it appeared those without Aadhaar were given relief from getting their PAN cancelled but those with Aadhaar apparently had to link. But if you dig deeper, that judgement doesn't override the 5 Bench interim orders that Aadhaar can't be mandatory. Also there is no official notification of last date of Aadhaar-PAN linking yet in Gazette. All 'deadlines' are announced by media management & press releases which don't have legal standing. We can take all this up in detail in a later article.

In the last major legal event, Constitutional Bench of 9 judges was formed to decide whether Privacy is a Fundamental Right inherent in Indian Constitution. On August 24, 2017 they passed a crystal clear judgement:

That's the story of Aadhaar legal maze so far, in short. We'll go in more details in future articles. I may also have skipped some cases such as UIDAI vs CBI where Aadhaar biometrics may now be shared with investigators with court's permission. This is really bad for civil rights, and destroys some basic premises of forensic investigations too. But I skipped it because right now it doesn't directly impact whether you should get an Aadhaar or use it or link it anywhere or not.

What's next? With Privacy upheld as a Fundamental Right by 9 judge Constitutional Bench in Justice Puttaawamy case, that case can proceed along with some 20+ other Aadhaar cases linked to it. Update is expected by end of November. A new barrage of cases have also been filed against SIM linking, bank account linking with Aadhaar and I think also against Aadhaar Act and mandatory Aadhaar for various things.

On what basis?

1. All Supreme Court interim orders right up to 5 judge Constitutional Bench order on October 15 2015 clearly say that Aadhaar cannot be mandatory for anything till the final court decision. These orders 23 still apply.
2. Aadhaar Act does not remove the basis of these interim orders and hence does not override them. We will see why, in a future article. This is also confirmed by the 14th September 2016 order of Supreme Court. Interim orders apply till final hearings & judgement.
3. The Aadhaar cases tied to Puttaswamy main case demand interim relief, stay, etc on Aadhaar itself as well as its various uses. That prayer cleverly or maliciously or just plainly never seems to have been considered yet. Aadhaar enrollments rolled on. Court has only stayed mandatory use of Aadhaar. When these main cases come up again, the stay pleas would be taken up.
4. Most deadlines for linking Aadhaar are on 31st December, 2017 or beyond. When the cases were most recently mentioned, the SC said Constitution Bench to hear the cases will be formed by end of November, before the deadline. Prayer for stay order can be made before that bench 4. So even if we don't consider present interim orders, no need to get or link Aadhaar yet.
5. In the situation that the main case is not heard as scheduled, again SC would consider a stay order 5
6. Government itself has submitted affidavit that the dates may be extended to 31st March 6. [However no notifications have been issued to such effect as of writing this article]
7. Even if we ignore the cases filed most recently and attached to it, the Justice Puttaswamy 'main case' had already ballooned to 22 cases at the time of Privacy Bench hearing few months ago. By my estimate, even if Constitutional Bench is formed by November end, there is no way 22+ cases can be heard out by December 31st, the closest Aadhaar linking deadline for most things. So a stay/date extension seems inevitable.
8. Even without any stay, as of today there are loopholes in PAN, SIM, bank account etc linking with Aadhaar as we will see in future articles. I specifically mention these three because unlike other notifications and circulars which seem to rely merely on Aadhaar Act to try to override SC 5 judge bench interim order, these three claim to have specific legal or judicial basis.
9. The SC has also clearly said telecom companies & mobile companies should not create undue panic and urgency in their messages for linking Aadhaar. They must specify the deadlines as the case may be (Currently 6th Feb 2018 for SIM and 31st December 2017 for bank account). So if you get emails, SMS etc without such deadlines, save them as proof of contempt of court.

1. As first option, just ignore any SMS, email etc insisting mandatory Aadhaar linking.
2. To be on the safer side, or if they actually suspend services or create obstacles in getting a new service, give your written refusal to link Aadhaar. Cite SC interim orders and reprimand them for illegally violating both SC interim orders as well as whatever the govt specified deadline is.
3. Your written refusal should have a record you can later produce if needed for any legal proof. Avoid verbal refusal or telephonic communication which cannot be proven. They will just endlessly coerce you verbally and if you succumb they will call it voluntary submission of Aadhaar by you.
4. If you submit a physical letter refusing Aadhaar to any authority or business enterprise, get their acknowledgement (signature, stamp etc) on a copy of the letter. Other option for physical letter is sending by registered post, while also keeping photographs/carbon copies/print copies of the letter with you, preferably photographed with the registered post envelop they are put into (I do not know if this last part is impossible for any practical reason).
5. If you communicate by email, enable saving of a copy in your 'sent email' folder. If such feature is not available, keep your own email id(s) in the 'To' field or 'CC' field of the email along with email id(s) of authorities you are writing to. I do not recommend the 'bcc' list because if they reply to you and you reply back, the bcc will not carry forward in the conversation. Openly keeping your email id(s) copied also sends authorities an overt message that you are keeping a record of the communication.
6. Once you have your record of refusal and reprimand in your hand , compel them to restore services (else face legal action in regular courts as well as consumer courts.)
7. Dr. Anupam Saraph, a well-known technologist who had also been an advisor to Goa's Chief Minister, has written few sample letters for refusing Aadhaar linking. Take guidance from these letters, modify and use, or directly use them as per your needs.
• First set of letter samples is in a MoneyLife article, published on 12 December 2016. One sample is letter to any agency or person or party insisting upon mandatory Aadhaar in violation of Supreme Court orders. Another sample letter is to UIDAI itself, for allowing such parties to authenticate Aadhaar against central database CIDR beyond the 5-6 uses alowed by SC. Reference 7 below links to this article.
• Second set of letter samples is in another MoneyLife article, published more recently on 14th August 2017, after the DoT orders for 'reverifying' SIM with Aadhaar was issued and after PML rule changes mandating Aadhaar for bank accounts were notified. It has sample letters to write to mobile service provider/bank, to UIDAI and to RBI. Reference 8 below links to this article.

• Opt Out Of Aadhaar. Ask Government To Delete It

1. In PAN-Aadhaar case (which was a travesty of truth in several ways, as we will see in later articles) the SC order seems to provide relief only for those without Aadhaar [Though deeper inspection shows this is not true]. The govt/court might try to pull a similar stunt in future too. So write to UIDAI to omit your Aadhaar. Advocate Prasanna who is involved in SC Aadhaar cases thinks people with Aadhaar should definitely try this, because UIDAI has the power to omit your Aadhaar number under section 23 of the Aadhaar Act. 910
2. Of course, as Prasanna himself admits there is no guarantee UIDAI will honour your demand 11. But you must definitely try. In the best case your Aadhaar gets omitted, while in the worst case there is an official record that you do not have Aadhaar by your voluntary free choice but were coerced or fooled into getting it and want to revoke it. This record would matter, particularly in court, against the government claim that people are happy with Aadhaar, getting it voluntarily. To keep a record, as always, send by registered post, or keep a record of your email, or take a photo, or get a signed acknowledgement on a copy if you hand over a letter physically to UIDAI officials.
3. On October 24th, 2017, Meghalaya People's Committee on Aadhaar had a public meeting 12. The meeting was attended by more than a thousand people and they resolved to opt out of Aadhaar if already enrolled, withdraw their consent given to UIDAI as well as get data removed from Aadhaar's database, similar to what Prasanna suggested above. They created a letter conveying this to UIDAI and 1000+ people signed and sent such letters 131415. You can also use this letter, linked in Reference 16 below.
4. Two citizen groups namely Rethink Aadhaar/No2UID 17 and Nir-Aadhaar Collective 18 are running an "Opt out of Aadhaar" campaign. You can sign their petition, linked in reference 19 below which is to be delivered to the GoI (PMO), UIDAI and Supreme Court.

• Delink Aadhaar from all services and entities

1. The above avenues are for completely opting out of Aadhaar, but ultimately depend on govt or UIDAI honouring these democratic petitions. Meanwhile if you have already linked your Aadhaar to some services, agencies, companies, etc for any purpose, or if you suspect they have obtained your Aadhaar info and are using it in any way, write to these entities to stop using and sharing it and to delink your Aadhaar from whatever goods, services, facilities, etc they provide.
2. Especially write to your bank if you have linked Aadhaar, because that will get you robbed, as I will explain in future articles. Even if they insist that your Aadhaar number must stay on their records due to any supposed government requirement, write to them to disable all Aadhaar Enabled Payments(AEPS) and Aadhaar Based Payments(ABPS) or such Aadhaar related services for your account. There is no government statute to force these highly insecure services. Make it very clear that you do not want these highly insecure services and hence if bank doesn't disable them as instructed by you, bank will be liable for any losses to your account.
3. A techno-legal law firm Perry4Law 20 has created a nice template letter to delink your Aadhaar from any service, organization, etc with whom it may have been linked. You could use it as it is or replace "To whomsoever it may concern" with your intended addressee. Reference 21 below links to this letter.

If you know other good letters, campaigns, groups etc against enrolling for Aadhaar, against linking of Aadhaar, for delinking of Aadhaar, for opting out of Aadhaar, I'll be happy to know about them and perhaps include them here or in future articles.

Just in case you are not sure why you should bother to oppose Aadhaar, let me assure you that Aadhaar is a weapon of foreign powers to plunge India into a catastrophic disaster consisting of

• Anarchy of cybercrimes, identity thefts & identity frauds
• Death of all meaningful provable stable identity
• Death of consensual identification
• Death of privacy
• Total surveillance
• Exclusion and discrimination
• Unchecked exploitation
• Death of free markets
• Death of all freedoms
• Actual, literal slavery
• Death of security
• Death of the idea of private property
• Loss of all control an individual has on own life
• Cashless economy, negative interest rates
• Economic collapse
• Dictatorial control by governments and corporations
• Remote, blameless, targeted murders
• Remote, blameless, mass genocides
• Civil wars
• Wars
• Guaranteed defeat for India in case of wars.

These points are gravely realistic, without any exaggeration. They will need many articles to explain in detail.

Now typically we expect democracy and its institutions to protect us from such grave evils. Then why are our three consecutive governments UPA1, UPA2 & Modi Sarkar all pushing the evil Aadhaar illegally as well as unconstitutionally? The answer is, because democracy is dead. Our elections are hijacked by the same foreign powers who are also pushing Aadhaar. They install their puppets as our government by rigging our electronic voting machines. And they keep rotating the puppets in power to give us an illusion that we punished the previous bad guys by vote and we have democracy. With formal electoral democracy dead by EVM rigging, all institutions of democracy directly or indirectly deriving from elected government are also already compromised, or will be in near future, if things go too far.

The signs of this can already be seen. The Executive betrayed us by pushing Aadhaar and its mandatory uses through mere notifications with no legislation and even in contempt of judiciary. The Legislature betrayed us by pushing Aadhaar legislation through Money Bill fraud. Judiciary has protected us so far, but only halfheartedly. It is also showing some signs of getting wobbly. If this institution also fails, only united citizens of India can thwart the Aadhaar calamity that has been unleashed upon us by the foreign powers who pretend to be our friends. With formal democracy dead by EVMs, our core real democracy of people must rise and assert itself. And perhaps sensing a strong enough democratic opposition, judiciary may also deliver a strong fatal blow of Constitution, Fundamental Rights and Justice to Aadhaar instead of wobbling around it.

I will elaborate more about Aadhaar on this site and about EVM and digital elections on another site, but it will take time. But in the meanwhile remember these points, try to understand them, relate them to what you know and understand about Aadhaar, try reading about it from other sources, try reading up history of Hitler's IBM digital ids used for management of World War 2 and Holocaust, turning people merely into numbered objects, resources, logistics. Tell as many people you can in real life as well as on internet, and rise against Aadhaar (and EVM)!

How to spread the word fast, passively and pervasively? Use the internet. Keep catchphrases against Aadhaar or EVM or both in your email signatures, Whatsapps status, other chat apps status, social media profiles, social media names! Some good catchphrases are:

• Destroy The Aadhaar!
• Ban Digital Elections!

You could hashtag these phrases too if it suits the platform you use them on. These will be read by people in your circles even if you do not talk about Aadhaar or EVM. At first level, these phrases serve as subliminal messaging, creating basic awareness and sentiment in some part of people's minds. At next level it will create curiosity and they may ask you about it. You can explain what you understand as well as lead them to good reading resources. I will be making this site a good reading resource as well as linking it to good reading resources. If this makes them feel concerned as well, you can request them to take up these messages in their digital life too. So the sequence repeats in their circles, and the wave of democracy against Aadhaar and EVMs spreads wider through freedom of expression, even without continuous active participation!

I hoped to get this article published much earlier. The draft of the article was ready by 14th November but the website template itself was not ready. Before main SC hearings started, I hoped to follow up this post with individual posts analyzing in detail topics like

• SC interim orders
• Aadhaar-PAN judgement and PAN linking
• PMLA rule changes and bank linking
• DoT orders and SC order supposedly mandating mobile linking

But that seems impossible now before court takes up the matter by end of November. Such articles if written may have very small shelf life as case situation changes in SC. So perhaps I should take up other topics like harms of Aadhaar, the foreign powers behind Aadhaar, larger attack on India by these powers in which Aadhaar has a central role, how we can fight back, etc.