R S Prasad makes another Aadhaar and privacy related false claim.
The Supreme Court gave a landmark 9 judge bench judgment upholding privacy as a fundamental right of citizens. The government was among the defendants and had vigorously stated that privacy was not a fundamental right.
Today, after the judgment, R. S. Prasad, Union Minister holding Law and Justice and Ministry of Information Technology portfolio in the Government of India tweeted:
Govt was of the view that #RightToPrivacy should be a fundamental right.
This is complete nonsense, of course. If the government was of the view that privacy was a fundamental right, why was the case in court at all and fought vigorously all through to the top till a 9 judge bench provided a judgment on a matter of crucial importance to the rights of citizens that the government was violating?
Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi, who represents the Union Government presented the government’s stand in the Supreme Court as privacy was not a fundamental right of Indian citizens and that the Constitution makers would have put it there if they had intended it to be. The government’s stand was that privacy is a right, but not a fundamental right (normal rights can be overruled by the government in various circumstances, while fundamental rights cannot).
Constitution makers did not intend to make right to privacy a fundamental right.
~ Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi while representing the Union government in Supreme Court before a 9 judge bench.
The government wants to be able to overrule a citizen’s right to privacy in order to force them to enroll for Aadhaar or lose their right to essential services, subsidies, and documents. Aadhaar, imposed by the government on citizens was being challenged in court in this landmark case by citizens against their government. What R S Prasad is claiming is a flat out lie.
The Union Government actually made the ridiculous claim that citizens don’t have absolute right over their bodies, sparking massive outrage on social media with hashtags like #MyBodyMyRight #RightToPrivacy starting to trend and remaining popular from then to now.
Advocate General Mukul Rohtagi cited two cases that supported this view. Rohtagi additionally falsely claimed in court that Aadhaar was foolproof and that the court should balance the right of the petitioners against those of the 700 million people it allegedly serves (which was also a false claim, because having an Aadhaar does not entitle you to anything, but in fact a lack of Aadhaar can prevent you from availing rights and services you already had access to). This outrageous falsehood has also been robustly challenged.
So the Attorney General committed perjury to defend the government’s obsession with surveillance of citizens and when they got soundly defeated anyway, now R S Prasad is claiming that they supported the peititoners who fought against them? This is so absurd as to make no sense. If the government respects privacy as a fundamental right, why does Aadhaar exist at all? Why are people being forced to get an Aadhaar if they want to use essential services like the subsidies they are entitled to or to pay tax or to hold a bank account or even a phone?
Conclusion: R S Prasad is lying. It is the beginning of the usual jumble of words you see around this government and particularly around Aadhaar cover ups that turns their actual meanings into their opposites.