Files Supreme Court Petition Against Indo-Lanka Digital ID Deal: A Civilian Stand for Sovereignty
A bold legal challenge has been filed in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka against the government’s controversial digital identity agreement with India. The fundamental rights petition, filed by Lina Amani Rishard Hamid, a law undergraduate and emerging nationalist voice, seeks to stop the implementation of the Sri Lanka Unique Digital Identity (SL-UDI) project, alleging that it violates the Constitution, national sovereignty, citizen privacy, and financial accountability laws.
The case, settled by Senior Counsel Canishka Witharana AAL, names 27 top state officials — including the President (as Minister of Digital Economy) and the Attorney General — and calls for urgent interim relief to halt the ongoing rollout of the Indian-managed digital infrastructure.
A Young Legal Mind with a Nationalist Mission
Lina Amani Rishard Hamid is not a politician, bureaucrat, or party proxy. She is a Sri Lankan law student who represents a new wave of legally informed, strategically awake youth determined to resist the outsourcing of Sri Lanka’s national systems. Her petition is the first of its kind — not symbolic, but fully grounded in constitutional law and calling for accountability at the highest levels of government.
Her move comes at a critical time: the Indian contractor procurement process is already underway, and full implementation may begin within weeks. If unchecked, this project could result in permanent foreign control over Sri Lanka’s biometric identity grid.
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The Heart of the Challenge: Two Secret Cabinet Decisions
According to the petition, the Sri Lankan Cabinet approved amendments to the 2022 Indo-Lanka MoU through two secret decisions dated January 27 and June 2, 2025. These decisions allegedly:
• Bypassed Parliamentary approval, violating Article 157 of the Constitution
• Were never disclosed to the public under Article 14A (Right to Information)
• Handed over core technical control to Indian authorities, undermining Articles 1 and 3 (Sovereignty)
The amended MoU allows India to control the appointment of the Master System Integrator (MSI), run the backend biometric database using MOSIP, and integrate the system into Sri Lanka’s immigration, banking, and health records.
SL-UDI Replaces a Nearly Completed Local System
The petition also highlights that Sri Lanka had already developed a sovereign digital identity system, known as the e-NIC project, with:
• Over Rs. 5.5 billion invested
• More than 80% of the work completed
• Domestic software and data controls already in place
Despite this, the government abandoned the e-NIC system in favor of the Indian-led SL-UDI project, effectively discarding years of local investment and handing over sensitive national infrastructure to a foreign state.
Legal Grounds: What the Constitution Says
The petition filed by Lina Amani Rishard Hamid is anchored in core constitutional principles:
• Article 1 & 3 – Sovereignty belongs to the People and cannot be surrendered.
• Article 4(d) – Sovereign power must be exercised through lawful and transparent means.
• Article 12 – All citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law.
• Article 14A – Every citizen has the right to access information of public importance.
• Article 157 – No international agreement is valid unless tabled in Parliament.
The amended MoU was never tabled, debated, or disclosed — a clear breach of legal process and public trust.
The Danger: Technical Dependency and Surveillance
The petition outlines grave national risks:
• Indian contractors will have full control of Sri Lankan biometric data.
• The government will be unable to access or verify the source code.
• All maintenance, updates, and future upgrades will require Indian cooperation, creating total dependency.
• Citizen data from banking, welfare, immigration, and health records will be centrally integrated and accessible to a foreign system.
This is not a simple IT partnership. It is a strategic surrender of national digital infrastructure.
What Lina Amani Rishard Hamid Is Asking the Court
The petitioner is seeking an urgent interim order to:
1. Suspend the SL-UDI project under Indian technical leadership
2. Declare the amended MoU and Cabinet decisions null and unconstitutional
3. Prevent any further procurement or implementation activities until full judicial review
4. Restore and complete the locally developed e-NIC system as Sri Lanka’s sovereign solution
A Civilian Movement, Not a Political One
This case is not brought by a party, NGO, or foreign-funded actor. It is filed by a Sri Lankan student, acting through the law to defend the sovereignty of her nation.
Lina Amani Rishard Hamid is part of The Nationalist movement, a non-party platform dedicated to defending constitutional authority, civilizational identity, and strategic independence. Her case is not about rejecting technology — it is about rejecting foreign takeover hidden under the language of development.
What’s at Stake
If the Supreme Court does not issue an interim stay, the Indian-managed rollout will likely proceed — and with it, the irreversible compromise of Sri Lanka’s digital independence.
If left unchallenged, this will set a dangerous precedent: that foreign governments can write Sri Lanka’s digital architecture, control our citizen records, and bypass our Parliament — all with a Cabinet memo and a press release.
Youth Are Rising
At just the undergraduate level, Lina Amani Rishard Hamid has done what most political leaders have failed to do: defend the country using the Constitution.
This is what a true civilian counterforce looks like — bold, lawful, strategic.
And it signals a new era: the nationalist youth are no longer watching from the sidelines. They are entering the frontlines.
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