How can you make Aadhaar mandatory when we passed order saying it’s optional: Supreme Court of India to Centre

SCI questions Centre for making Aadhaar mandatory for PAN cards

The Supreme Court of India(SCI)questioned the Centre on Friday April 21,2017 for making Aadhaar mandatory for procuring Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, told a bench headed by justice AK Sikri that they have found that people were giving details of PAN cards which have been procured on the basis of fake documents.

Rohatgi said there were instances that one person had a number of PAN cards and these fake cards were being used to divert funds to shell companies.

To this, the bench asked the Attorney General, “Is this the remedy that you need to have Aadhaar for having PAN? Why has it been made mandatory?”

Responding to this, Rohatgi said that earlier too they have found people procuring SIM cards for mobile phones on fake identity cards and the apex court had asked the government to have a check on it.

The bench said it would hear arguments on the plea challenging the government’s move making Aadhaar mandatory for PAN cards on April 25

Through an amendment to the tax proposals in the Finance Bill of the Budget for 2017-18, the government has made Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and provided for linking of PAN with Aadhaar to curb tax evasion through use of multiple PAN cards.

Note

The Supreme Court, in it previous order on the issue dated August 11, 2015, said that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for government schemes.  “The Union of India shall give wide publicity in the electronic and print media including radio and television networks that it is not mandatory for a citizen to obtain an Aadhaar card. The production of an Aadhaar card will not be condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen,” the court said in its judgement.