Mumbai: At a time when PM Narendra Modi is enforcing people to the use of Aadhaar card and connect it to all services, his own office does not have information of the Aadhaar card details of their own ministers. In fact, it can also be concluded that the ministers in the government are showing thumbs down at the mandatory registration of Aadhaar card. This information was exposed by Anil Galgali through a Right to Information Act query.
Activist Galgali had sought information from the PMO of the names of those ministers, including the PM who have submitted their details for Aadhaar cards. The RTI application filed by Galgali was transferred to five different ministries, namely Cabinet Secretariat, loksabha Secretariat, Rajya Sabha secretariat, Information and Technology Ministry, and UIDAI.
The under-secretary in PMO Shri Pravin Kumar specified that though the PM may have the Aadhaar number the information was rejected under Section 8(1) of the RTI Act 2005.
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Information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which does not have a relationship with any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information officer or State Public Information officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.”
The Public Information Officer Shri Ashok Kumar, declaring that the information sought pertains to Third party, specified that, the information is about the biometric data and the population hence the secrecy is paramount hence the information can be provided only to people related with the data.
Anil Galgali has expressed that the PM’s and the ministers’ Aadhaar details should be available. He further commented that if the PMO does not have the details of Aadhaar card of its own ministers it means that the ministers themselves have ignored the directions of PM Narendra Modi.
