PIL filed before Delhi High Court alleging unauthorized access, usage and storage of Aadhaar data by Google Pay

A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Delhi High Court alleging unauthorized access, usage and storage of the Aadhaar data by Google Pay. (Abhijit Mishra vs UIDAI) .The PIL has been filed by Abhijit Mishra, a financial economist. .As per the petitioner, Google Pay in its terms and conditions has explicitly mentioned that it would collect, store and share the bank account and Aadhaar details of users when it has no permission from Unique Identification Authority of India or any other authority to do so. .This, the petitioner claims, is in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, Aadhaar Act 2016, Payments and Settlement Systems Act 2007 and Banking Regulations Act 1949..In his petition before court, as has been alleged by him in a separate pending PIL, the petitioner has added that Google Pay is not registered / licensed under the aegis of the Payments and Settlement Systems Act 2007 to conduct the business of payments and transactions..Further, Google Pay is also not registered/licensed as a Bank/Co-Operative Bank/Financial Institution/Non-Banking Finance Company under the aegis of the Banking Regulations Act 1949 to conduct the business of payments and processing the transactions, it is added. .The petitioner has, therefore, sought a direction to the Unique Identification Authority of India to initiate actions against Google Pay under Sections 23A, 28, 29, 38 and 43 of the Aadhaar Act 2016 for unauthorised collection, storage and usage of Aadhaar information of the citizens. .It has also prayed that Unique Identification Authority of India and Reserve Bank of India be directed to prevent such unauthorized access. .The petition, filed through Advocate Payal Bahl, was listed before a vacation bench of Justices Vibhu Bakhru and Prateek Jalan on December 31, 2020. .The court deferred hearing in the matter with a direction to the petitioner to file an affidavit detailing all the PILs filed by him till date..The matter would be heard next on January 14. .[Read Order]