Indian high court rules that biometric verification failure cannot deny legal rights

In India one of its high courts has ruled that biometric verification failure cannot be a reason to deny a person’s legal or fundamental rights.

The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court issued the ruling with Justice Subodh Abhyankar deciding after hearing a petition by Vinod Kumar Meena. Madhya Pradesh is one of India’s states, with a population of 72 million.

Meena was refused a job at Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) after he failed biometric verification during the onboarding process, as reported by The Economic Times. This technical issue led to the petition being filed, according to his counsel.

In his decision, the Justice recognized the importance of biometric verification to ensure a fair selection process but observed that mistakes can occur. “Although it is true that biometric verification is necessary nowadays to eliminate any discrepancy, and to ensure free and fair process of selection, it is also true that biometric verification is not always successful in eliminating discrepancies, like in the present case, and there are occasions when biometric verification of a candidate cannot be done due to a myriad reasons, beyond the control of the parties,” said Justice Abhyankar.

The Justice referenced the principle that procedure should service justice, and remarked that a machine’s failure should not supersede a person’s rightful claim. The court ruled that a person’s identity should not be determined by a machine only and that verification must be allowed by official documents.

Justice Abhyankar mentioned documents such as Aadhaar card, Samagra ID, PAN Card, driving license and passport. The court directed LIC to verify Meena’s identity via documentation and to issue his appointment letter within four weeks.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  biometric identification  |  biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  identity verification  |  India