Kochi: The high court, in a significant judgment, has directed the Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI ) to compare fingerprints provided by the state investigating agency with its Aadhaar database in connection with a 2016 double murder case in Palakkad.
The case pertains to the murder of an elderly couple, Gopalakrishnan and his wife, Ammukkutty, at their residence in Kannukurissi, Palakkad, on Nov 14, 2016. The crime was committed to rob gold and cash. One accused, Rajendran, was arrested after his fingerprints matched those lifted from the crime scene, but the other culprits remained untraced despite extensive investigation. The investigating agency sought UIDAI’s assistance in comparing the suspects’ fingerprints with its database, but the request was rejected, prompting the state and the police to approach the HC.
However, the court noted that Section 33 of the Aadhaar Act permits disclosure pursuant to an order of the high court and that the request did not involve disclosure of core biometric information. Justice G Girish issued the order on a petition by the State of Keralam, represented by the Palakkad Crime Branch DSP after UIDAI rejected a request to compare the fingerprints of certain suspects with its Aadhaar database. the court clarified that the permission was granted in view of the exceptional facts and circumstances of the case and could not be cited as a precedent for adopting the same course in other cases in the future While allowing the petition. Rejecting the privacy concerns, the court observed that the collection of information in connection with a criminal investigation was excluded from the legal embargo relating to the right to privacy discussed in the Supreme Court’s K S Puttaswamy judgment. It held that the contention that the judgment barred the requested fingerprint comparison was unfounded. Accordingly, the court directed UIDAI to compare the suspects’ fingerprints with the data available in its Aadhaar database for Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu, where the investigating agency suspects the other offenders may be hiding, and inform the petitioner of any matches.