Skip to main content

Centre faces Supreme Court poser on mandatory Aadhaar for PAN cards

By

The Centre on Friday faced searching questions from the Supreme Court for making Aadhaar mandatory for PAN cards, despite its order that it should be optional.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, made the submission as a Bench comprising Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan asked him why Aadhaar has been made mandatory for applying for PAN cards when the apex court had earlier said it should be made optional.
Rohatgi said the government had found that lots of fake PAN cards had been procured on the basis of fake ration cards and other documents and these were used to divert funds to shell firms.To stop such a situation, it has been decided to make Aadhaar mandatory while applying for PAN.
“There is a legislative mandate now.Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act says so. It is the only option as we have found that people were getting PAN cards on fake ration cards and such cards were used to divert funds to shell firms,” he said.
The Bench observed, “Is this the remedy that you need to have Aadhaar for having PAN? Why has it been made mandatory despite this court´s order?”
Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, introduced by the Finance Act 2017, provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar or enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form for filing of IT returns and for making application for allotment of PAN with effect from July 1 this year.
Rohatgi said they had found that SIM cards for mobiles were procured on fake identity cards and the apex court had asked the Centre to put in place an effective mechanism to scrutinise it.
Senior counsel Arvind Datar, representing the petitioner, told the bench that they have challenged the constitutional validity of section 139AA of the income Tax Act, which has made Aadhaar mandatory for applying for PAN card as well as for filing IT returns.“According to this section, if one does not have Aadhaar card, he cannot have a PAN.
This would create huge difficulties,” he told the Bench, which said it would hear arguments on the plea on April 25.

Business Standard New Delhi, 22nd April 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

By
  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...
Post a Comment
Read more