Aadhaar Card Holder Has Fundamental Right To Seek Alteration Of Name, Other Details: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court has held that Aadhaar card holder has the fundamental right to seek alteration of their details in the Aadhar card.Justice GR Swaminathan in his order observed that the Central Government had introduced the Aadhaar regime and the statute confers right on the Aadhaar number holder to seek alteration.Referring to the Aadhaar Act the court said that the law was originally intended to ensure that the targeted constituency of the welfare schemes receive the benefit.It referred to Section 7 which states that the Central or State Government may, for establishing identity of an individual as a condition for receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service for which the expenditure is incurred from or the receipt therefrom forms part of the Consolidated Fund of India, require that such individual undergo authentication, or furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number. The court referred to Supreme Court's decision K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2019) which held that Section 7 of is aimed at offering subsidies, benefits or services to the marginalised sections of the society for whom such welfare schemes have been formulated from time to time.The high court thereafter held:"When right to receive the benefits is a fundamental right and Aadhaar Card is a mandatory vehicle through which the benefit can be received, the card holder has the concomitant fundamental right to seek alteration of the demographic information in the card in terms of Section 31 of the Act"It further said:"The Authority is therefore under a correlative duty to make the changes on being satisfied that the information earlier incorporated warrants alteration. Physical accessibility is the issue that has been flagged in this writ petition. The number holder is a widow and a senior citizen. She is a resident of Paramakudi in Ramanathapuram District. I fail to understand as to why she must be made to come all the way to Madurai to enforce her right to alter the demographic information in her Aadhaar Card. Of course, to alter the biometric information, one's physical presence may be required. But the facility to alter the demographic information must be available at the local level. Admittedly, there are 4056 Aadhaar enrolment centres in the State of Tamil Nadu. These centres can very well be equipped to cater to the requests for alteration of information envisaged under Section 31 of the Act"The court observed that while information set out in the Aadhaar Card has to be necessarily correct which is why a duty is cast on the Aadhaar number holder to request the Authority to alter the demographic information if found to be incorrect. However Section 31(3) of the Aadhaar Act reads that the Authority, if it is satisfied, may make the necessary alteration. The court said that the expression “may” normally has a discretionary connotation, however depending on the context, "it can be construed as obligatory also". "I hold that the Authority is duty bound to make the corrections in the Aadhaar Card on being satisfied that the information set out therein is correct. In other words, the whole purpose of Section 31 is to ensure that one's Aadhaar Card contains the correct details," the court held. BackgroundThe court was hearing the petitioner's plea seeking a direction to the UIDAI to carry out necessary corrections in the records by rectifying the petitioner's name as 'Pushpam' instead of 'Pushbam' and to further correct the date of birth as '07.06.1952' in place of '25.06.1952' in his Aadhaar Card. The petitioner is a widowed senior citizen aged about 74 years. Her husband had served the Indian Army for 21 years and was receiving army pension. Following his demise on 23.05.2025, the petitioner applied for transfer of the pension account.The petitioner's request could not be processed on account of errors found in her Aadhaar Card. The writ petitioner's name had been wrongly spelt as “Pushbam”. Her date of birth was erroneously entered as 25.06.1952 instead of 07.06.1952.The petitioner had approached the E-Sevai Maiyam at Paramakudi to set right the aforesaid errors. She was directed to approach the local post office for effecting the corrections but her efforts were in vain. She then sent a representation to the Regional Centre, Bengaluru. Since there was no response, she approached the high court. FindingsThe court said that while it was about to dispose of the woman's plea with a direction to the Aadhaar Seva Kendra, Madurai to accept the pension order and make the changes, at that stage many bar members stood up and complained that there is only one Aadhaar Seva Kendra for all the southern Districts of Tamil Nadu."The centre is located near the District Court. Quite a few recounted their personal experiences. It appears that certain changes such as correcting the details pertaining to one's address and phone number can be done at the local level. But changes in name, date of birth and biometric information have to be done...

Aadhaar Card Holder Has Fundamental Right To Seek Alteration Of Name, Other Details: Madras High Court

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