Many citizens can have a sigh of relief as the Government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it will extend the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, mobile numbers and other services. The Centre told the three-judge bench that it will extend the deadline for those who did not apply for the Aadhaar card yet and do not possess any id proof.
At present, the deadline for linking the 10-digit alphanumeric PAN (Permanent Account Number), issued by the Income Tax Department, with Aadhaar is 31 December.
Eralier, quoting a government official PTI reported that the government will give additional three-six months to link the biometric identifier Aadhaar with PAN in case the Supreme Court rules in its favour. The official also added that once the new deadline will be crossed then the government might cancel all PANs that have not been linked.
The cancellation will weed out all duplicate PANs and make benami transactions void, the official said.
Last month, the government had told the court, which is hearing petitions against making Aadhaar linking to bank accounts, mobile phone numbers and others mandatory, that it is willing to extend the deadline toMarch 31, 2018. This year, the government made the quoting of Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns (ITRs) as well as obtaining a new PAN.
"The duplicate PAN cards are the ones which are creating a major danger to the economy. They are the ones who are using this duplicate PAN for opening bank accounts and then they are transacting and they are not filing returns. So we need to worry about them," the official said.
Section 139 AA (2) of the Income Tax Act says that every person having PAN as on July 1, 2017 and eligible to obtain Aadhaar, must intimate his Aadhaar number to the tax authorities.
The government had in August extended by four months the deadline for linking PAN with Aadhaar till December 31, pending the Supreme Court verdict.
Last month, the apex court refused to put stay on linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phones.
The deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts is December 31, while for the mobile number it is February 6.
The apex court said that since the main Aadhaar case was due to he heard at the end of November, a stay was not necessary in the current situation.
However, the court clarified that if the case was not heard as scheduled in November, it would consider a stay at that time.
The petitioners Arvind Datar and KV Vishwananathan also pointed out that the bank linking and phone linking were entirely illegal and sans authority, responding to which the Court said, "The Constitution Bench is due to hear the main Aadhaar case in November end would consider these issues too."
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 "Deadline for linking Aadhaar from bank accounts may extend but here's a catch")
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