Government’s flip-flop on the Aadhaar-SIM linking issue before the Supreme Court

Roham Venkaramakrishnan of the Scroll.in writes – As the Supreme Court hears petitions contending that Aadhaar violates the fundamental rights of Indians, it’s clear that much of the broad edifice created by the government in defence of the national identity project rests on shaky ground. The 12-digit biometric ID was supposed to be voluntary, although in a huge swathe of circumstances it clearly was not. The legislation for it was passed much after millions had already been enrolled. It was supposed to be secure but has instead aided the leaking of massive amounts of government data. It was meant to make welfare delivery more efficient, but in many cases has made people’s lives harder. And, on Wednesday, the government admitted that it had been lying about another aspect too: the Supreme Court had never made it mandatory for all phone SIM cards to be linked to individual Aadhaar numbers. (Read more)