Krishnadas Rajagopal reports:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday referred to a Constitution Bench the question whether a person can voluntarily waive his privacy rights by enrolling for Aadhaar.
A Bench led by J. Chelameswar refused to stay its August 11 order making Aadhaar optional except for public distribution system and LPG connections.
The Centre on Tuesday had told the apex court that a poor starving man will have no second thoughts about shedding his privacy rights to enrol for Aadhaar, as it gets him a square meal and earnings.
With this, the government asked the Supreme Court to not stand in the way of crores of citizens willing to voluntarily enrol for Aadhaar to get social benefits and services.
The government’s line saw the Bench led by Justice J. Chelameswar retort with a question whether “just because somebody is poor and starving, he should not have his privacy”.
Read more on The Hindu.