SC Contends Making Aadhar Mandatory For ITR, PAN:- The Supreme Court which upheld the new law linking Aadhar to the Permanent Account Number (PAN) yesterday said the introduction of Aadhaar into the tax regime is one of the measures to tackle the corruption and black money menance.
The implementation of the IT Provisions Act making Aadhaar number mandatory for allotment of PAN Card and filing of IT Returns, was stayed yesterday by the Supreme Court.
To the aadhaar scheme, the “malfides” cannot be attributed, as it would go a long way to check and lower the malaise, said the apex court even agreed with the government’s contention that UIDAI is the best and robust method of de-duplication of PAN database as there was no instance of Aadhaar duplication.
The Aadhaar facility may also facilitate law enforcement agencies to take care the problem of terrorism to some extent. It may also be helpful in checking crimes and also aid the investigating agencies in cracking the crimes.
A bench headed by Justice A K Sikri said, “Undoubtedly, going by aforesaid, and may be some other similarly valid considerations, it is the government’s intention to give filip to Aadhaar movement and to enroll themselves by encouraging people under the Aadhaar scheme.”
“Whether such a scheme should remain voluntary or it can ve made compulsory, imposing compulsiveness on the people to be covered by Aadhaar is a different question, which shall be addressed at the appropriate stage.”
The validity of Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act makes Aadhaar mandatory for allotment of PAN cards and linking the filing of Income Tax returns.
The bench, also comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan, said to enact Section 139AA, the Parliament was fully effective. The main objectives is to “de-duplicate PAN cards” and ensure that one person does not have more than one card or there is no procurement in fake names.
“It is mentioned that in de-duplication exercises, 11.35 lakhs cases of duplicate PANs/fraudulent PANs have been detected. Out of these, around 10.52 lakhs pertain to individual assesses.”
The bench said “A single PAN to one individual can be ensured by adopting Aadhaar for allotment of PAN to individuals. As of today, that is the only method available i.e. by linking of the existing PAN with Aadhaar”.
The top court also referred to the findings of Special Investigation Team on black money headed by Justice M B Shah, a retired Supreme Court judge, which had said that at present, there was no mechanism to collect the data of an individual while entering into financial transactions.
The problem of money-laundering arises, due to the multiple methods of giving proofs of identity, which is being done to put off taxes under the garb of shell companies. This is being done by the individuals holding multiple fake PAN numbers under different names, it said.
SUPRAJA
