New Delhi, Apr 21: Today, solution of making Adhaar mandatory to put a permanent stop to the frauds being conducted by these shell companies was questioned by the Supreme Court to the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi who believes that it is the only path to handle the Income tax returns. Regarding this matter, Supreme Court questioned the Central Government that will it be fruitful to pursue the process of using Aadhar card for Income Tax returns for handling fraud.
The apex court went on in an argument against making the biometric-based database of India`s 1.2 billion citizens legal, to which Mukul Rohatgi mentioned that making Aadhar card compulsory is the only way to stop the black money. He also said that this will also prevent the transfer of funds to the shell companies by the help of duplicate pan cards.
Earlier in 2015, the Supreme Court had announced that Aadhar card will not be allowed to become the important process to expand the advantages of social welfare schemes. However, the SC also stated that the government cannot be stopped from verifying the Aadhaar that are issued by UIDAI for filing of IT returns and opening of accounts in banks.
On the other hand, challenging the SC’s decision, Sec 139AA of the IT Act by the Finance Act, 2017 makes Aadhar compulsory in order to file IT returns, for obtaining PAN card, for continuing the validity of PAN.
Impugning Sec 139AA, two different petitions were filed by SG Vombaktere who is a retired Indian Army officer, Bezwada Wilson who is the convenor of Safai Karmachari Andolan and the other peition had been filed by CPI leader, Binoy Visvam. These two petitions were heard by the SC Bench of Justices, AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan. As per the petitions, the IT Act’s purpose is to levy tax on the income of a person and to lay down the procedure of paying and collecting the same.
