Mandatory Quoting of Aadhaar for filing ITR: SC Likely to Hear Petition on Monday

Recently, the Finance Act, 2017 has been passed by the Parliament making Aadhaar mandatory for citizens to file their income tax returns from the Assessment Year 2017-18 by linking the same to their PAN card. A petition challenging the constitutional validity of the said provision has filed before the Supreme Court. The petitioner, Binoy Viswam, Ex-Minister, Kerala, an executive member of CPI filed a petition through advocate Sriram Parakkat questioning the introduction of the new provision in the Income Tax Act to link Aadhaar card with PAN card. According to the petitioner, he did not have an Aadhaar card on the legitimate expectation that the said scheme “was not mandatory” in view of the earlier SC’s orders. In its earlier ruling, the Apex court held that Aadhaar should be voluntary and no benefits can be denied for want of it. According to the petitioner, the scheme itself, was voluntary and the card is to be obtained only on the consent of the individual. Now, due to the new provision in the Finance Act, inserting a new provision, i.e, section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961, he is being forced to obtain an Aadhaar card, which would resulted in complete violation of his right to privacy. Non-Enrolment of Aadhaar by July 2017 under the new law would render the PAN of the defaulting individual invalid, attracting serious consequences under the Income Tax Rules. The petition is likely to come up for hearing soon. However, no interim relief has been passed by the Court till now.It might tag the petition with other pending cases in which the validity of the notification backing Aadhaar has been challenged on the ground that it violates the right to privacy. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is already seized of petitions challenging the validity of Aadhaar on the ground of violation of right to privacy. The Apex Court had last month said that Aadhaar number was not mandatory for welfare schemes. “As all of you already know, the Aadhaar Act itself is a violation of privacy and biometric information of an individual is taken and there’s no safeguard against its misuse. Even before we filed this petition, many others including Jairam Ramesh had challenged the Constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act. Those petitions are placed before a Constitutional Bench of 7 Judges. In the event of referring to a constitutional bench, Supreme Court had issued an interim order saying that aadhaar can only be voluntary and cannot be mandatory. At this juncture, in blatant disregard to the orders of the Supreme Court, and even to the objects of the very Aadhaar Act, 139AA was inserted in to income tax Act as an amendment to Income Tax Act Sec 139 AA means that without an Adhaar, one cannot file income tax, secondly 139AA means that if you don’t have an Adhaar, your pan card will be invalidated. This I find to be unconstitutional in many ways,” Adv. Sriram Parakkat, the counsel for the petitioner said. “Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal had agreed to appear in this case. It’s likely to be listed on Monday,”