 Hello and welcome to NewsClick, Supreme Court has come out with a major judgment when it comes to right to privacy But there is one important factor that also deals with right to privacy and the other judgment which is going to come And that is right to food To discuss the issue we have with us Deepa Sinha, she is a convener of right to food campaign Welcome to NewsClick Deepa, so let's start with right to privacy judgment And what do you think, what sort of judgment it is and what implications will it have See firstly as far as the right to privacy goes it's been, it's quite a significant judgment The court has very clearly now said that right to privacy is a fundamental right Which it has always been but it has clarified that that's what it is And that is I think a very far reaching judgment in terms of civil liberties, people's freedom of expression, descent and so on So this is really important Coming to the issue of right to food If we go back a little bit into how did this right to privacy issue come up in the court at all in the first place So in 2015 when the court was hearing cases related to Aadhar being mandatory in welfare schemes One of the arguments that were being made against Aadhar was that it was going against the right to privacy At which point the Solicitor General Mukul Rathagi who was representing the government came up and said there is no right to privacy So that's not an argument And that's how this got referred to a nine judge bench and therefore went there So one of the things that also happened is that the hearings related to all the right to food and other welfare schemes And Aadhar got suspended till this right to privacy was resolved So in that way also firstly it's positive that finally this thing is resolved It's resolved in a positive manner So we are hoping that this will again reopen and the court will hear the cases They already said that in November 1st week they will hear the cases related to the welfare schemes Let's come to right to food campaign and the petition that is going to be heard in the Supreme Court What's the basic thing that the petition talks about and what will the court be hearing So the basic issue with all the food related schemes And this is in different cases filed by different petitioners PDS, school midday meals, ICDS, various schemes Where Aadhar has been made mandatory to get the benefits Basically saying that unless you have an Aadhar and then when you are getting the benefits Unless it is authenticated, your fingerprints match what is in the system You will not get your benefits And based on our experience we found that this is actually exclusionary One set of argument is that why should people be forced to get onto this Aadhar platform Which is one common platform for so many different things They are not privacy safeguards You don't know how the data is getting used So that is one set of issues which I am keeping aside for now Because privacy has been resolved The other is the issue of exclusions The technology is not fully foolproof Wherever it's been introduced we are seeing that people are actually getting excluded more Rather than getting included People who are already getting PDS for example Genuine beneficiaries Now not getting it because for some reason say their fingerprint doesn't match Or the day they go to get their ration the network is not working and that machine is not working So the dealer says he can't give it So there are a number of additional reasons now which have come into the system to exclude people And that is our primary contention that Aadhar is not something that is forwarding people's right to food It's actually taking it away from them And therefore that it cannot be made mandatory The food campaign is asking for abolition of Aadhar when it comes to right to food Or it should not be mandatory As far as when it comes to right to food What we are asking is that it should not be made mandatory to get benefits under the National Food Security Act Or any of the other schemes And that it should be de-linked So what has been the development till now Because there were petitions and court was hearing it as you pointed out So there have been orders in 2015 already which say quite clearly That Aadhar cannot be made mandatory for any welfare schemes Okay, PDS was one of the schemes in which they allowed Aadhar to be used Because at that time government made arguments that they really had to do it But even in the case of PDS they said it cannot be mandatory They can use it So if people are willing to see their data They can be allowed to do it But that people cannot be excluded because they don't have Aadhar Or because they are not giving their Aadhar number But what's happening in practice on the field Is that it's being made mandatory in state after state Including in 42 shops in Delhi where it's being done as a pilot But the Supreme Court orders until now have been saying that it should not be mandatory But after that they also passed this Aadhar Act Which also they did through a back door Where they didn't even take it to They didn't take it to Rajasabha where they knew it won't get passed So all this will now come up in the court and hopefully be challenged But why do you think the government is doing that Despite Supreme Court saying that it cannot be mandatory See at one level also looking at how it's happening on the field now This seems like it might sound like a conspiracy theory But this seems like one way of cutting down on subsidies And cutting back on these programs Because now if you look at the whole narrative that the government is giving us You have everyday different figures coming up about how much money is being saved Because of Aadhar coming into this scheme So the Prime Minister on the floor of parliament said that 3.94 crore ration cards have been cancelled because of Aadhar No evidence for that There was a piece I think in Financial Express yesterday Coating government sources saying 30,000 crores have been saved in PDS Because of the introduction of Aadhar Now all of this there is no basis at all And whatever little basis there is Is of the reduction in people taking entitlements post Aadhar Which they are interpreting as reduction in leakages So for example if there were 5 names which were taking rations 2 months back And they are not now Then they are saying those people must have been ghosts But we are seeing in the field that those people exist In the case of pensions in Rajasthan We did an expose also where We took the list of people who the government had declared ghosts dead And they were living This would be my last question The Aadhar judgement, the Aadhar hearing will start in November And by December they are expected to pronounce the judgement What are your expectations and suppose if The Supreme Court decides that it has to be mandatory What will be the way ahead Firstly we hope and also think that the chances That Supreme Court will say it has to be mandatory are low Given 2 things One the previous hearings in the Aadhar cases And the orders that have already come on this Has kind of already shown what the court is thinking also It was because of this privacy question that it was suspended for a bit And the privacy judgement also goes in our favour Secondly in these 2 years between 2015 and 2017 The Aadhar has now also been rolled out in many parts of the country So we have much more evidence of the damage it can do Which we will definitely be presenting in court In 2015 it was more of our speculation of what it could do But now we know hard evidence There are people who will file affidavits saying I have got left out because of this So I hope that the court will not say it should be mandatory If it does because that was your question I don't think the struggle ends there I mean this is a struggle for people's entitlements and rights And none of this came easily The National Food Security Act or NREGA or pensions Are not things that came out of the largest of any government It came out of people's struggle So we will have to see how to build the mobilization And how to pressurize governments to finally not do this And I do think that they will be quite a reaction on the ground If this continues because it is affecting people in their day to day lives So it will not be allowed to happen Thanks a lot Deepa for giving us your time And I am sure that right to food campaign Will have a victory in December And all these things will be coming back to you on set Thanks a lot Thank you for watching NewsClick