Saving in the arrays and comparing and argument to and array shell bash

i do not know why this code stopped working i tested it a couple of times and it was running great what i am trying to do hear is place first and second in 2 different arrays and then comparing argument $2 ==> $comment to the array varA and if it is in the array i do not want to store it in the text file $file

comment=$2
dueD=$3
x=0

hasData()
{
    declare -a varA varB
    cat $file | while IFS=$'\t' read -r num first second;do
         varA+=("$first")
         varB+=("$second")
        done

    if [[ ${varA[@]} == ~$comment ]]; then
        echo "already in the Todo list"
    else
        x=$(cat $file | wc -l)
        x=$(($x+1))
        echo -e "$x\t$comment\t$dueD" >> $file
    fi

i think i am storing the values wrong in the array because when i try

echo ${varA[@]} 

nothing gets printed more over i think my if statement is not accurate enough since this is the 4th time i edit it and it works but after a while it no longer works need assistance kindly