Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh has moved the Supreme Court for a review of its September 29 judgment upholding the passage of the Aadhaar Act in Parliament as a ‘Money Bill’.
Mr. Ramesh’s review petition highlights the lone dissenting opinion of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, one of the five judges on the Constitution Bench led by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra. Justice Chandrachud had held that the passage of Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill by superseding the Rajya Sabha was a “fraud on the Constitution”.
The judge had said it might have been politically expedient for the ruling party in the Centre to bring the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill, but it amounted to “subterfuge” and debasement of constitutional authorities.
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The petition argues that the Aadhaar Act clearly did not fall within the ambit of Article 110 (1) of the Constitution, which clearly and narrowly restricts Money Bills to certain fields. In fact, Justice Chandrachud had declared that a “Money Bill must deal with the declaring of any expenditure to be expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India.”
The majority judgment had used Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act to justify its passage as a Money Bill. Section 7 required authentication by Aadhaar card if beneficiaries wanted to access subsidies, benefits and services.
But Mr. Ramesh’s petition quotes Justice Chandrachud to counter that Section 7 is a provision for imposing the requirement of an authentication and not declaring any expenditure to be a charge on the Consolidated Fund of India.
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“In pith and substance, the Aadhaar Act provides for a legislative framework for the establishment and maintenance of a central database of identity-related information of residents and elaborates as to how such information should be collected, stored and used,” the review petition, drawn by advocates Muhammad Ali Khan and Omar Hoda and filed by advocate Gaurav Goel, contended.
The plea said the introduction of Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill was nothing but a “brazen and mala fide attempt to bypass the approval of the Rajya Sabha.”
The plea argued that the Speaker’s decision as to the Aadhaar Bill being a Money Bill was not immune from judicial review.
The review petition said the mere severance of Section 57 — which allows not only the State but also any body corporate or person or private entity to demand Aadhaar from citizens for the purpose of identification — from the Aadhaar Act does not make the law valid again. It is either that the entire statute or none at all.