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As the last date of filing income tax return is approaching fast, the issue of non-availability of Aadhaar Card with many taxpayers is creating issues. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court provided much needed relief by directing Income Tax Department to allow filing of ITR without Aadhaar Card.
Section 139AA of Income Tax Act makes it mandatory to quote Aadhaar number while filing income tax return. Due to which, many taxpayers were facing problem in filing ITR without Aadhaar Card.
Two women petitioners, Shreya Sen & Jayshree Satpute moved to court as they were unable to file ITR online due to non-availability of Aadhaar Card.
On hearing the plea, judges S Ravindra Bhat & A K Chawla said that, as the CBDT already extended the last date to link PAN & Aadhaar to 31st March, 2019. Then option to file ITR without Aadhaar Card should also be provided to taxpayers while they are filing return online.
Delhi HC also directed the CBDT to make required changes in the income tax efiling website to enable filing ITR without Aadhaar Card before the deadline i.e. 31st July, 2018.
On the same lines as Delhi HC, the Madras High Court also allowed 9 petitioners to file ITR without Aadhaar Card.
A division bench headed by Justice MM Sundresh & Anand Venkatesh said that filing ITR without Aadhaar Card would not be prejudicial to the department. Bench reasoned that SC is yet to give its decision on the constitutionality of Aadhaar Card. However, court also said that petitioners will have to quote their Aadhaar details if SC ruled otherwise.
At present, there are many number of taxpayers out there who do not possess Aadhaar. And because of Sec 139AA, they are bound to face problem in filing ITR without Aadhaar Card. Hence it becomes very important for the government to make laws which help it's citizen instead of burdening them.
Now, what needs to be seen is, what steps the Income Tax Department & CBDT will take to implement directions of Delhi HC.
