Aadhaar Card Has Nothing To Do With Citizenship, Can Be Given To Non-Citizens: UIDAI Tells Calcutta High Court

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has told the Calcutta High Court that granting of Aadhaar cards has nothing to do with citizenship and that even non-residents who have lawfully entered the country can be granted Aadhaar cards if applied for.

These submissions were made before a division bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya, who were hearing a plea by the 'Joint Forum Against NRC' challenging the sudden deactivation and reactivation of a number of Aadhaar cards in West Bengal. 

The petitioners had challenged the constitutional validity of Regulations 28A and 29 of the Aadhaar Rules, which gave unbridled power to the authority under the act to decide who was a foreigner to deactivate their Aadhar card.

Aadhar is a behemoth. One cannot be born without Aadhar- as it is required for birth certificates, and one cannot die without Aadhar. Our lives are connected within the matrix of Aadhaar," it was argued by the petitioner's counsel Jhuma Sen.

Counsel further pointed out that one such deactivation of a Bangladeshi national and his family's Aadhaar cards was interfered with by a coordinate bench of the High Court. 

Senior Counsel for the UIDAI, Laxmi Gupta, commenced his arguments by challenging the locus of the petitioners, by calling them an 'unregistered organisation', stating that such a plea would not be maintainable at their instance.

It was further argued that Aadhaar cards had nothing to do with citizenship and that they could be given to those who were non-citizens for a fixed amount of time in order for them to avail of government subsidies.

It was argued that the plea would also not be maintainable since it was espousing the cause of those who were non-citizens and instead Bangladeshi nationals.

Additional Solicitor General Ashok Kumar Chakrabarti appearing for the Union submitted that the plea would not be maintainable since it did not challenge Section 54 of the Aadhaar Act from which the regulations flowed and that the petitioner could not have challenged the sovereignity of the country, as such a promulgation could be understood as an 'act of sovereign.'

Accordingly, the Court heard the matter in part and listed it for further hearing at a later date.

Case: Forum Against NRC v Union Of India

Case No: WPA(P) 112/2024