“The opinion that Reliance Jio relies on fails to read the judgment correctly and as a whole and suffers from selective quoting from different places in the judgment (including those sections that deal with the submissions of the Respondent i.e. Union Govt), to come to a conclusion completely at variance with the true spirit of the judgment,” says Prasanna S, a lawyer for petitioners in the Aadhaar cases before the Supreme Court.

“Harish Salve’s opinion also fails to acknowledge the asymmetries of information and asymmetries of power at play when use of Aadhaar is sought to be allowed on a "voluntary" basis. A telecom operator faced with additional costs of paper CAF management will and is likely to seek and insist on Aadhaar authentication anyway, even as the rules provide for paper voluntariness. The Court was mindful of these issues when it struck down the part relating to "contract" in Section 57,” says Prasanna.

Section 57, which allowed the use of the 12-digit Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, was held unconstitutional in the September ruling.

Justice Sikri, writing for the majority appears to have anticipated this, says Prasanna and adds that Sikri has given neat and operative summary of the judgment. “In the summary dealing with Section 57 of the Act, among other things, the Hon'ble Court struck down the following portions - "any contract" and "body corporate",” highlights Prasanna.

“Vodafone, in its response has stated that the exit plan of UIDAI, would have ‘grave ramifications’,” says Kodali. They however, do not state what those grave ramifications are. And then they go on to blame the subscriber for all issues. Vodafone states that the subscriber cannot be contacted, the paper process requires several hours for activation and affects national security.

Bharti Mittal-led Airtel in its submission stated that it had completely stopped re-verification of customers using the Aadhaar. But, then it states that Aadhaar-based verification addresses the security concerns of the country and is convenient to the customer. It included that they had issued 233 million SIM cards to 105 million subscribers using Aadhaar, so it is difficult to verify using paper.

Tata TeleServices and the Airtel letter reads similar and Tata also goes on to state that it had ended the re-verification of customers using Aadhar. Then, they too add, in language similar to the Airtel letter, that Aadhaar is secure and addresses the national security question.

“All these amendments are nothing but a way to help private companies. It does nothing for the citizens of the country. Some are more equal than others,” contends Kodali.