Retired Karnataka high court judge, Justice Anand Byrareddy has filed an interlocutory application before the Supreme Court to add himself as one of the petitioners challenging the provisions of the Aadhaar Act 2016. According to a detailed report on Livelaw.in, Justice Byrareddy highlights that the Act does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens, alleging that this leaves the system open to abuse and poses a "serious security threat". The highlights of the application include: The Act fails to account for and be responsible for the welfare of the country's citizenry as it "fails to distinguish between a citizen and resident/migrant/immigrant (legal and illegal)". The act violates the Fundamental Right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21, "since the biometric and demographic information is collected as a mandatory condition precedent, while the safeguard mechanisms provided are wholly inadequate." The act seeks to create "a wrongful classification amongst a homogeneous group of entitled persons – (i) the ones with an Aadhaar number; and (ii) the ones without an Aadhaar number, the same is arbitrary." Although the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is in possession of the data, it has no legal liability for any theft, fraud, crime, and compromise of any security or privacy. The passing of the Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill "amounts to a fraud on the Constitution of India." Justice Byareddy had initially filed a separate petition against the implementation of Aadhaar which was dismissed by the apex court. But he was given the liberty to file and…
