Gujarat HC says till SC judgement, PAN won't be inoperative if not linked to Aadhaar: Report

PAN Aadhaar

The Gujarat High Court has ruled that until the Supreme Court gives its judgement on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, PAN cards not linked with Aadhaar cards will not become inoperative, The Economic Times reported.

This comes as a relief to taxpayers who will no longer be required to meet the March 31 deadline for the PAN-Aadhaar linking.

Under Section 139AA(2) of the Income Tax Act, every person who has been allotted a permanent account number (PAN) and who is eligible to obtain Aadhaar number, shall intimate his Aadhaar number to the Income Tax Department. If he fails to do so, his PAN card shall become inoperative.

The I-T department has extended the PAN-Aadhaar linking deadline several times already, and the current deadline had been set for March 31, 2020.

However, as per the Gujarat high Court ruling, the SC has referred the issue of whether the Aadhaar Act was rightly introduced as a 'Money Bill' to a larger bench. Since this matter on the Aadhaar Act itself is to be heard by the apex court, the HC said that failure to meet the deadline for linking will not render the PAN cards inoperative. This, as per the ET report, will hold until the time the SC delivers its judgement with respect to the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act.