India admits in Supreme Court that Aadhaar data was leaked

The BJP government on Wednesday admitted in the Supreme Court that Aadhaar card holders’ data were indeed leaked, but maintained that there was no leakage by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Arguing for the government, advocate Arghya Sengupta told a bench led by Justice AK Sikri that the leakage was by various other government departments and state agencies. Sengupta said the leakage might have occurred on account of balancing transparency and data protection concerns.

As Justice Sikri pointed out that there were reports in the newspapers even on Wednesday about leakage of Aadhaar data, Sengupta said there could be some errors here and there and some IDs were perhaps issued in the names of ‘Hanuman’ and dogs but UID remains the most sophisticated and authentic biometric system.

Sengupta was defending the government’s new law that makes Aadhaar mandatory for having PAN cards and also for filing Income Tax returns. He said the legislature was competent to enact Section 139AA, which was inserted in the Income Tax Act under the Finance Act, 2017.