At hearing on savings ‘due to’ UID, Supreme Court judge fumes: Don’t call me Aadhaar judge

“We are neither Aadhaar judges nor NGO lawyers,” he said as senior advocate Shyam Divan tried to explain that he didn’t mean to impute motives.

“You called me Aadhaar judge,” Justice Chandrachud said.

“No I did not,” Divan replied.

“Yes, that is what you did,” the judge countered.

The exchange started with Divan trying to counter the government’s claims on savings on account of use of Aadhaar. The government had quoted a report by the World Bank to justify its decision to make the unique identity mandatory for availing social welfare benefits.

On the last hearing, Justice Chandrachud had also cited the same report to counter Divan’s submission that the Aadhaar architecture facilitates surveillance, which, the counsel said, is the feature of a totalitarian state and that countries such as North Korea would envy it. Replying to this, Justice Chandrachud had said that the Aadhaar programme is “not just the envy of North Korea, but also the World Bank”.

On Thursday, Divan attempted to trash the World Bank report and said the bank’s chief economist, Paul Romer, had quit after raising questions on the bank’s own data. He also cited information obtained under the RTI Act to counter the government’s claims on savings figures due to Aadhaar.

Justice Chandrachud then wanted to know if the points that were being argued were part of the pleadings.

The repeated questions from the bench seemed to have irked Divan, who also raised his pitch. This did not go down well with Justice Chandrachud, who retorted, “Can you be a little more gentlemanly? Why don’t you lower your tone a little….”

Seemingly annoyed, the judge added, “If for asking questions you are branding me Aadhaar judge, then I will rather be a nationalist.”

As Divan fumbled for words, Justice Chandrachud continued, “Since the beginning of this matter, we are being told that you either agree with us or you will not be liberal, you will be ideologically oriented. We think less about what the community thinks about us. We are answerable only to our conscience and the Constitution. That is why we are here.”

The judge said that he had practised 20 years in the Bar and his greatest concern used to be when the judges did not ask him questions. “If for asking questions we are branded Aadhaar judges…if that’s the charge, then I plead guilty to it,” he remarked.

It then took CJI Dipak Misra to defuse the situation by posing some questions to the counsel on his contentions.

Divan finally apologised for annoying the bench.