The Court invoked Article 21 of the Constitution and its extraordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 to direct UIDAI to provide the relevant police officials with the Aadhaar details to aid in tracing the missing minor girl, considering the imminent danger to her life.

JUDGMENT

1. Shri Anil Joshi, AAG submits that till date the UIDAI has not provided complete details to the Investigating Officer and thus, the investigation is not progressing further.

2. This Court considered in detail, the permissibility to provide the Aadhar details to the police officials who are investigating the matters of missing minor girls in the case of Govind Swami v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. , wherein it was directed as below:-

"Shri Navneet Singh Birkh appeared for Shri Mukesh Rajpurohit, learned ASG and urged that in view of the amendment brought around in Section 33 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, the details of Aadhaar Card cannot be shared without providing opportunity of hearing to the authority and the concerned Aadhaar number holder. He submits that before issuing any direction to the UIDAI, the Aadhaar Card holder has to be mandatorily heard and thus, the order dated 20.09.2021 may be recalled. Shri Birkh also placed reliance on the judgment rendered by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) & Anr.vs. Union of India & Ors. (Writ Petition (Civil)No.494/2012) decided on 24.08.2017, and urged that no information can be disclosed without hearing the person in respect of whom the disclosure of information has been sought.

We have thoughtfully considered the submissions advanced by Shri Birkh and, have gone through the relevant statutory provisions. We have also given our respectful consideration to the observations made by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (supra).

Suffice it to say that in the present case, the controversy pertains to the disappearance of the corpus (whose Aadhar details are being sought) as she is missing since October, 2020. The Aadhaar details are being sought for by the police officials so that efforts can be made to trace the corpus. For all we know that the victim might have been liquidated by now.

As the suspect and the victim are reported to be missing and as the victim is a minor girl, there is an imminent danger to her life and limb and thus, by virtue of exercising powers under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and the extraordinary writ jurisdiction conferred upon this Court by Article 226 of the Constitution of India, we are of the view that the possibility of providing an opportunity of hearing to the Aadhaar Card holder is virtually impossible as the suspect and the corpus are missing for more than last one year. Moreover, we are of the firm view that the confidentiality of the Aadhaar details provided to the investigating agency shall definitely be maintained because the information would be provided to the I.O. who would be under an obligation to use the same only for the purposes of getting further leads to trace out the corpus.

Consequently, we hereby direct the UIDAI to provide the relevant police officials to the extent prescribed by the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, within a period of 15 days from today so that the efforts to trace out the corpus can be intensified."

3. The aforesaid directions are reiterated. In the present case also, the corpus is aged around 15 years and is missing since December 2020. Shri Mukesh Rajpurohit, ASG shall ensure that the requisite details are provided to the Investigating Officer forthwith and not later than within ten days from today.

4. List the matter on 26.5.2022.