De-facto imposition of ‘Aarogya Setu’ in Regional Passport office, Mumbai challenged in Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday sought the response of the Central government in a petition challenging the de-facto imposition of the mobile application Aarogya Setu by the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Mumbai..The plea filed by one Tanya Mahajan claimed that she was denied entry into and service by the passport office because she did not have the mobile application installed on her mobile application. It was her argument that the action by the RPO goes against the law laid down by the Supreme court in KS Puttuswamy v. Union of India judgment..A Bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Abhay Ahuja issued notice to the passport office and Central government and posted the case for further hearing in January 2021. .Mahajan has prayed for a direction from the court to give citizens the choice to use the Aarogya Setu mobile application voluntarily and to not deny any service to them if they have not installed the same. .The act of the passport office is not in consonance with the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs for re-opening all services during the pandemic and infringes upon her right to privacy, Mahajan stated in her plea..The plea filed through the Software Freedom Law Centre, India (SFLC.IN) and advocate Aditi Saxena relied upon the order of the Ministry of Home Affairs to show that Aarogya Setu is being promoted for voluntary use “on best effort basis”..The passport office too purportedly “only advised to install the mobile application and did not make it essential to be installed into our mobile phones,” the petition said. .Mahajan placed reliance upon the judgment of KS Puttuswamy in which the Supreme Court laid down the principle that: “There must be a law in existence to justify an encroachment on privacy by the State. There must be a legitimate state aim and the means which are adopted by the legislature must be proportional to the object and needs of the legislation.”.It was Mahajan's submission that since there was no such law which mandates the installation of an application that tracks a citizen, the requirement to install the Aarogya Setu application is in violation of the right to privacy of citizens..She also relied upon the order of the Karnataka High Court in the plea filed by AA Aravind wherein the Court recorded that "the government or its agencies cannot refuse a benefit or a service to a citizen who does not have Aarogya Setu installed in their device.".Karnataka HC asks Centre to provide details of data collected when downloading Aarogya Setu app.She added that the mobile application was initially portrayed as a 'voluntary contact tracing application'. It was later modified to allow users to access 'convenience services in relation to COVID-19'. This, she claimed, indicated that the application might outlive the pandemic..Mahajan also sought urgent directions to allow her to enter the regional passport office at Mumbai..The matter is likely to be taken up for hearing next on January 7, 2021.

De-facto imposition of ‘Aarogya Setu’ in Regional Passport office, Mumbai challenged in Bombay High Court

Neha Joshi

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