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In the last decade, some schemes have been recast as statutory entitlements – right to employment, right to education and right to food. Whereas schemes were dependent on annual budgetary allocations, there rights are now justiciable, and it would be obligatory for Parliament to allocate sufficient resources in the budget. Some of these rights also entail expenditure by state governments, with the implication that state legislatures will have to provide sufficient funds in their budgets. Importantly, the amounts required are a significant proportion of the total budget. There has been little debate on the core constitutional issue of whether any Parliament can pre-empt the role of resource allocation by future Parliaments. Whereas a future Parliament can address this issue by amending the Act, such power is not available to state legislatures. Through these Acts, Parliament is effectively constraining the spending preferences of states as expressed through their budgets passed by their respective legislative assemblies. I have discussed these issues in my column in Pragati published on August 16, 2013.
The government has given itself the “master key” to access major consumer databases maintained by companies in different sectors. Under new regulations made under the Information Technology Act, government can ask companies to share sensitive personal information about their customers. Sensitive personal information would cover medical records and history, information about physical, physiological and mental health, sexual orientation, credit and debit cards, biometric information and passwords. Under the new rules any government agency required under law to obtain information for the purpose of verifying identity, or for prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution, and punishment of offences can ask a company to give sensitive personal information held by it about an individual. There are no checks on this power, except that the request for information be made in writing, and stating clearly the reason for seeking the information. Usually information requests have certain inbuilt checks. For example, search warrants in criminal cases are issued by a court. Tapping of telephones or interception of electronic communication can only be authorised by the Union or the State Home Secretary after following a prescribed process. The new Bill for Unique Identification Number (UID) permits such use only by the order of a court, or for national security (by an order of an authorised officer of at least Joint Secretary rank in the central government).
