Biometrics Are Necessary To Eliminate Discrepancies, But Failure Of Machine To Recognize A Person Cannot Override Their Fundamental Rights: MP HC

The Indore Bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that a person's legal and fundamental right cannot be curtailed only on account of failure of a biometric machine to recognize him. A single judge bench of Justice Subodh Abhyankar observed, “In this regard, this Court is of the considered opinion that although it is true that the biometric verification process is necessary nowadays to eliminate any discrepancy in the record, and to ensure free and fair process of selection, however, it is also true that biometric verification is not always successful in eliminating the discrepancies, like in the present case, and there are occasions when biometric verification of a candidate cannot be done due to myriads of reasons, beyond the control of the parties. In the circumstances, can it be said that only on account of failure on the part of a machine, a person's rightful claim can be rejected, and the answer is an emphatic 'no', as this Court is of the considered opinion that a person's legal and fundamental right cannot be curtailed or side-lined only on account of failure of a machine to recognize him, for whatever be the reasons.” The present petition was filed by the petitioner being aggrieved by an order passed by the respondent - Life Insurance Corporation of India, whereby, the petitioner was informed that due to failure of his biometric verification conducted by the authority - Tata Consultancy Services and the decision taken by the competent authority, the petitioner cannot be appointed on the post of Assistant. “LIC was the master, whereas TCS was the servant, and if any order is communicated by TCS to its master i.e., LIC, it was the duty of the LIC to communicate the same to the petitioner, hence, TCS is certainly not a necessary party to the lis, because even if it had been made a party, its presence could not have made any difference, as at the most, it would have contended that the biometric verification of the petitioner was unsuccessful at the time of document verification.”, the Court said. Further with regard to the question whether such condition that biometric verification shall be binding on a candidate is concerned, the Court opined that biometric verification is not always successful in eliminating the discrepancies, thus, a person's legal and fundamental right cannot be curtailed or side-lined only on account of failure of a machine to recognize him.