NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court asked on Wednesday what was wrong with the ‘one nation, one identity’ idea in response to a statement by counsel for West Bengal and senior advocate Kapil Sibal that the apex court must decide constitutional validity of this idea, the driving force behind mandatory Aadhaar.
Sibal had said that forcing citizens to get Aadhaar and its linkage to each of their social interactions was to empower the government with the right to information about people and the driving force behind making Aadhaar mandatory+ . “The real issue to be tested by the Supreme Court is the one nation, one identity idea,” he had said on Tuesday.

Justice Ashok Bhushan, part of the five-judge Constitution bench which is hearing marathon arguments on petitions challenging the validity of Aadhaar on the ground that it violated citizens’ fundamental right to privacy, asked Sibal: “What is wrong with the one nation, one identity idea? After all, we are all Indians and proud of that identity.”

Sibal reacted with sarcasm, saying everything is fine with the idea. But not this to be mistaken as his acquiescence, he said: “Everything is wrong with the idea of one nation, one identity. Let us not get into a debate on that issue in court. I had said that yesterday as a legal argument and not as a political statement. To be Indian and being proud of it is fine, but Aadhaar should not be the determining device for that. We are all fiercely Indian even if we do not have Aadhaar.”