THE All India Kisan Sabha, in a statement issued on January 16, has said that its  application in the Aadhar Case – writ petition (Civil) No 342 of 2017 in the matter of Shanta Sinha and another Vs Union of India and others has been accepted by the Supreme Court with the intervention application number 6666/18 dated January 15, 2018. Advocate on Record Reshmitha Ramachandran has filed the application. Senior lawyer of Supreme Court Adv P V Surendra Nath will represent AIKS. The Constitution Bench of Supreme Court will hear the case on January 17, 2018.

The provisions of Aadhar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act 2016 are used by the government of India and private parties alike for purpose other than the targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services. This has created umpteen miseries and hardships for the poor farmer community in India. Aadhar is made mandatory to access a host of farm sector schemes and programmes.

The Aadhar is mandatory for availing soil health card, crop insurance including Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and fertilizer subsidies. The result is that many needy sections like farmers, labourers and adivasis are denied many essential subsidies, benefits and services due to non-linking of Aadhar.

A large majority of manual labourers and farmers in India, due to the rough exterior of fingers caused by constant hard work, have got bad quality of finger prints and hence cannot get an Aadhar number, even if they wish for it. This happens despite proviso to Section 7 of Chapter III of the Aadhar act mandating that if Aadhar number is not assigned to an individual he/she will be offered alternate and viable means of identification.

Hence AIKS has submitted to the Supreme Court that, linking of Aadhar number for essential services, benefits and subsidies at least in the case of such farmers, labourers and adivasis to be excluded.

The petition has stated that the farmer community in the country is in grave trouble because of mismatch of numbers with land records, bank accounts and biometrics with Aadhar. In rural areas authentication per person takes lot of time due to poor connectivity.

In Jharkhand an eleven year old girl named Santhosh Kumari died of hunger and malnutrition in September 2017 as her mother could not get Aadhar card which was made mandatory by the state government for food rations.  Denial of ration has happened to large number of poor households all over the country. Hence linking of Aadhar with PDS needs to be excluded, the statement said.