A Fingerprint Now Stands Between a Family and Cheap Gas

From 1 October, subsidised cooking gas requires a biometric Aadhaar check. The Delhi High Court has asked the Centre to answer a disabled lawyer who says the rule locks people out. The next date is 18 November.

From 1 October 2026, a household that wants cooking gas at the regulated price, with the subsidy, is supposed to have completed a biometric Aadhaar authentication. The petroleum ministry wrote to the three public oil companies on 17 September. A press note followed on 19 September. People who had already done the check need not do it again. People who have not can still buy gas, the ministry says, but not the ordinary 14.2 kilogram cylinder at the subsidised rate. If they register that they are unwilling or unable, they may be offered a 5 kilogram or a 10 kilogram cylinder at the market price, subject to availability. On 14 October the Delhi High Court asked the Centre, the petroleum regulator and the public oil companies to reply to a public interest petition against that rule. The petitioner is Pulkit Luthra, a lawyer with a 75 percent permanent visual disability. Acting Chief Justice Nitin Wasudeo Sambre and Justice Sanjay Sharma gave the government two weeks. The case returns on 18 November.

What the subsidy is worth

The ministry's case is not frivolous. Domestic gas is sold below cost. It put the hidden subsidy at about ₹210 on a 14.2 kilogram cylinder in September 2026, and at ₹721 in June, when the gap was wider. Diversion into restaurants and small industry is a real leak. Duplicate connections are a real leak. A biometric check, tied to one living person, is the tool the ministry chose after extending the deadline through August and September. Attorney General R. Venkataramani told the court the aim was to stop misuse, and that the concerns of disabled people would be addressed. That assurance is now on the record. It is not yet a procedure.

The state can chase a duplicate cylinder without making a blind person, or an old person, buy the small tin at the open price.

Luthra's petition, argued by senior advocate Zoheb Hossain, says the rule reaches about 3.16 crore consumers and does not rest on a power the Aadhaar Act actually gives. The Supreme Court has already held that Aadhaar is a poor instrument to force on people for services where the body cannot reliably offer a print or an iris, and that the law's own limits matter. An iris scan is a particular cruelty for a person with little or no sight. Ageing prints fail. Labouring hands fail. A rule that treats "unable" as a consumer choice, and then withdraws the standard cylinder, converts a disability into a price. The petition says supplies under the old arrangement stopped on 1 October, and it wants interim protection at the next hearing. The court did not grant that protection on the 14th. It asked for replies first. For a household cooking on the last cylinder, first is a long time.

The other ways the ministry says a person can comply

The official note lists doors: the delivery person can authenticate at the doorstep, the company app can do it, the distributor's office can do it. People who cannot, or will not, are told to register that fact on a website, an app, a WhatsApp chat or a phone menu. Each of those doors assumes a phone that works, a dealer who arrives, and a biometric machine that accepts the body in front of it. A village dealer with one machine and a queue is not the system described in a press note. The court will have to ask a plainer question than the ministry's design brief. On 2 October, how many of the 3.16 crore were actually unable to book a subsidised refill, and how many of those were disabled, elderly, or simply unmatched by the machine? If the government cannot produce that count, the assurance to the Attorney General is a sentence, not a safeguard.

There is a principle under the price. Welfare that requires the body to perform, every time, will always fail the bodies that cannot perform. The leak of subsidised cylinders is worth closing. It is not worth closing by pushing a visually impaired lawyer, and the millions in his position, onto a smaller cylinder at a higher price while the case waits until 18 November. The court has the replies coming. The kitchens do not have that kind of patience.

November is a long time for a cylinder

Between 14 October and 18 November a family can finish the cylinder it has. The court asked for replies before interim relief. That is orthodox. It is also a choice about who waits. A visually impaired petitioner is a stand-in for hands that fail a scanner and for eyes that cannot offer an iris. If the oil companies cannot say, in the reply, how many of the 3.16 crore consumers failed to book a subsidised refill after 1 October, and how many of those were disabled or old, the Attorney General's assurance has nothing to attach to. A safeguard that is not counted is a sentence spoken in a courtroom while the kitchen uses the smaller, dearer tin.

A subsidy that survives only for bodies a machine approves has already chosen who eats a hot meal. The court can still refuse that choice on 18 November. The cylinders burned until then are not coming back.