A privacy campaigner in India has launched a renewed legal effort to ensure that the government does not make its biometric-backed unique ID scheme mandatory for all initiatives.Mathew Thomas has filed a case with the Supreme Court alleging that the government is still trying to make the Aadhaar system compulsory for all scheme.His attorney has accused petroleum & natural gas secretary K D Tripathi and Indian Oil Corporation chairman B Ashok of “wilful and deliberate violation” of a previous SC order related to the issue.Last August, a case led by Thomas, a former army officer and defence missile scientist turned social activist, resulted in the Supreme Court decreeing that the Aadhaar number must not be mandatory for government schemes.However, Supreme Court five-judge Constitution bench in October last year extended the use of the Aadhaar card on a voluntary basis to avail other government schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.This was in addition to the other two schemes – public distribution system and LPG schemes – allowed earlier by the court in its August 11, 2015 interim order.
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