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CONCOURS-2015: Citizens Filed A PIL Before The Supreme Court of India Challenging The Constitutionality of The

The document summarizes a legal case in India regarding the country's "Super Card Scheme," an initiative to provide citizens with single identification cards linking personal information to various IDs. The scheme faced widespread protests over privacy issues and a legal challenge. A company contracted to work on the scheme, HCL, stopped work due to losses from the protests and legal issues. The government sued HCL for breach of contract. The High Court ruled in the government's favor, but HCL appealed to the Supreme Court, which is considering the privacy issues in the initial legal challenge alongside HCL's appeal.

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Rishabh Bhandari
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38 views2 pages

CONCOURS-2015: Citizens Filed A PIL Before The Supreme Court of India Challenging The Constitutionality of The

The document summarizes a legal case in India regarding the country's "Super Card Scheme," an initiative to provide citizens with single identification cards linking personal information to various IDs. The scheme faced widespread protests over privacy issues and a legal challenge. A company contracted to work on the scheme, HCL, stopped work due to losses from the protests and legal issues. The government sued HCL for breach of contract. The High Court ruled in the government's favor, but HCL appealed to the Supreme Court, which is considering the privacy issues in the initial legal challenge alongside HCL's appeal.

Uploaded by

Rishabh Bhandari
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CONCOURS-2015

The Republic of India is the second most populated country in the world. Despite being rich
in natural resources and being the fastest growing economy in the world, more than thirty
percent population of the country lays below the poverty line along with a considerable
number being only marginally above the same. Being a welfare state, the Government since
the country’s independence in 1947, has spent a substantial part of its income every year on
welfare schemes in order to eradicate poverty and raise the standard of living of the
marginalised in the country. However this has had little effect on the living conditions of the
targeted populace. One major reason recognised for this is the diversion of subsidies to the
non- marginalised classes due to lack of proper identification of the intended beneficiaries.

On the Independence Day of India in 2009, the Government, in order to eradicate poverty and
ensure that the benefits of welfare schemes directly reach the targeted beneficiaries,
introduced the “Super Card Scheme” which according to the PM would provide real
independence to the country by providing freedom from poverty. The Super Card Scheme
would introduce all-in-one identification cards (ID) for all citizens of the country, linking a
person’s biometric and demographic data with his/her bank accounts, voter IDs, pan cards
and all other existing forms of IDs. The Super Card Scheme and all the data collected under it
would be managed by an authority to be created by an Act of Parliament known as the “Super
Centre”.

The Scheme was subsequently launched into action covering about sixty percent of India’s
population by 2012. However, in 2012 it met with widespread protests across the country
over the fundamental rights issues related with the scheme. Following this, an NGO Naked
Citizens filed a PIL before the Supreme Court of India challenging the constitutionality of the
Super Card Scheme on the ground of it being in violation of the Fundamental Right to
Privacy guaranteed under the Constitution. Due to its great constitutional importance, this
matter was listed before a nine judge bench of the Supreme Court.

The Government during the launch of the Scheme had awarded various contracts to private
parties for carrying out different parts of the Scheme. One such contract was awarded by the
Government to HCL Infosystems Limited (hereinafter “HCL”). The work to be done by it
included collection of the required data, its synchronization with various IDs of a citizen,
preparation of the cards and finally handing over of the cards to the citizens in exchange of a
nominal fee from them.

The widespread protests and the pending case before the Supreme Court led to some people
boycotting the card registration drive. Further the Supreme Court’s interim order directing
that the cards not be made mandatory for citizens lead to serious apprehensions about the
1
success of the Scheme. The people who were earlier enthusiastic about the Scheme at the
time of collection of data refused to pay even the nominal fee at the time of receipt of the
card.

As a result of the above HCL sustained huge losses and stopped performing its part of the
contract. The Government on being apprised of the same filed a case for breach of contract
against HCL before the High Court of Delhi. Before the High Court, HCL argued that the
contract under present circumstances had become impracticable to perform taking into
consideration the purpose of the contract that the parties had intended at the time of entering
into it. HCL also argued that being in violation of the fundamental right to privacy, the
contract would even otherwise be void on the grounds of public policy. The Government on
its part argued that based on the contract it had with HCL, it entered into subsequent contracts
with other parties for hiring of space and personnel for carrying out the Scheme and has spent
thousands of crores on it already. The High Court weighing the arguments on both sides
decided the matter in the favour of the Government.

Aggrieved by the decision of the High Court, HCL filed a Special Leave Petition in the
Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court, considering the relation between the two
petitions clubbed them together for hearing. Although the ongoing PIL is admitted by the
Supreme Court for consideration on merits, the maintainability of the Special Leave Petition
before the Supreme Court is challenged by the Government.

Note:

The problem has been drafted by Shantanu Singh, Diviangna Garg and Bharat Hari
Dhakalia of the 5th Year. Any attempt to contact them with respect to this problem shall lead
to disqualification.

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