Govt: No benefits must be denied even if Aadhaar does not exist

New Delhi, April 3: The Central government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the authentication failure of the biometric data of an Aadhaar holder does not result in the exclusion of the beneficiary from accessing subsidies and other benefits including services.

The authentication failure does not mean exclusion or denial from subsidies, benefits or services since the requesting entities are obliged under the law (Aadhaar Act, 2016) "to provide for exception handling mechanism", the government told the five judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

Giving the figures of authentication failure of IRIS scan and finger prints at the national level, the court was told that of the 1,08,50,391 persons, who participated in iris scan authentication and failed was 927,132 - that is 8.54 per cent and in case of finger print scan of the 61,63,63,346 who participated, the failure was 3,69,62,619 which comes to 6 per cent.

The court was told that figures for authentication failure at the state level are not available with the UIDAI as it does not track the location of the authentication transaction at this level.