Can link PAN, Aadhaar till December 31

The income tax department has extended the deadline to link PAN with Aadhaar by 4 months to December 31.

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday extended by four months, the deadline to link Aadhaar and PAN till December 31. This move comes at a time when a similar extension has been granted for furnishing Aadhaar to avail benefits of social welfare schemes.

“To facilitate ease of compliance by the taxpayers, CBDT has extended the date (for) ... linking Aadhaar with PAN till December 31, 2017,” the finance Ministry said in a statement.

Also, the ‘due-date’ for filing Income Tax returns (ITR) and audit reports has been extended by a month to October 31 for all taxpayers who were liable to file by September 30, 2017.

The extension has to be read in the backdrop of the fact that Aadhaar is facing a slew of legal challenges on grounds that it breaches privacy, leaving officials to wonder if the government can still push ahead with its use in a range of services.

These concerns have heightened since the Supreme Court’s privacy judgement on August 24.

Government sources say that reading of the privacy judgement and other SC verdicts on the biometric-based identity scheme show that Aadhaar could lose its position of eminence against preexisting identity proofs.

Joint readings of the apex court’s judgements since 2015 on Aadhaar reveal the SC has raised doubts about the legality of making the Aadhaar project the basis of availing citizens’ entitlements.

In its landmark judgement on privacy, SC had referred the challenges to the Aadhaar scheme to another bench of judges that will begin hearing the matter from November.

But before that, the apex court from September 4 will start hearings into Jairam Ramesh’s challenge against the validity of Aadhaar Act.

“Aadhaar is a proof of identity of an Indian citizen and not for availing benefits as a citizen or activities such as opening bank accounts, filing tax returns, passport applications,” said Gopal Krishna, member, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties, one of the first petitioners against the programme. Top sources in the government said that the tax department has been studying the privacy judgement to see if it contradicts the linking. The government had made it must for people to link their Aadhaar with their PAN for income tax returns (ITR) from this year and warned that those not adhering to the rule could lose their permanent account numbers.