The Madras High Court on Friday directed the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to ascertain immediately if Aadhaar data of citizens had been compromised.
The High Court asked the UIDAI to ascertain if the Puducherry unit of the BJP had been able to access mobile phone numbers of voters from the UIDAI database, as claimed by a public interest litigant.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy issued the direction after expressing displeasure over a submission made by a Central government standing counsel, representing UIDAI, that the litigant, A. Anand, of the Democratic Youth Federation of India had not made any representation to it. The judges said the authority could have acted on the basis of information provided by the Election Commission.
Passing interim orders on the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition, the first Division Bench wrote: “It is apparent that the sixth respondent (BJP) political party may have resorted to a form of campaigning (sending bulk SMS with links to join the party’s booth level WhatsApp groups) not permissible under the model code of conduct.”
It added, “Unfortunately, rather than the seventh respondent (UIDAI) authority trying to ascertain how the personal details of voters may have been leaked from its system, such authority accuses the petitioner of not having brought the matter to the notice of the relevant authority. The Election Commission, however, says that it has brought the matter to the notice of the seventh respondent. The seventh respondent should immediately ascertain how such material could have been accessed by a particular political party.”
The Bench also took note of elaborate submissions made by the Election Commission with respect to the action taken by it and granted it time till March 31 to file another status report.
When the petitioners’ counsel complained that the bulk SMSs were being sent unabatedly even after the filing of the case, the judges said: “It is for the Election Commission to take immediate action if such is the case.”
Earlier, the Puducherry Chief Electoral Officer informed the court of having issued a show cause notice to the BJP on March 7.
Senior counsel G. Rajagopalan, representing the Commission and the CEO, said the BJP had not responded to the notice.
