Madras HC dismisses plea to file I-T returns without Aadhaar

Chennai: The Madras high court has dismissed a petition, which sought a direction to the Income Tax Officer, Chennai to grant permission to the petitioner to file his income tax returns for assessment year 2017-18 either manually or through appropriate e-mail facility without insisting his aadhaar card or enrolment ID. Dismissing the petition filed by Thiagarajan Kumaraja, Justice T.S.Sivagnanam said on a reading of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Binoy Viswam case, it would clearly show that the Apex court has not stayed the proviso to sub-section (2) of section 139AA of the Income Tax Act and the partial stay would be applicable only to facilitate the other transactions, which are mentioned in Rule 114B of the Income Tax Rules, which pertains to transactions, in relation to which, PAN is to be quoted in all documents for the purpose of the Act. Therefore, to state that the partial stay granted by the Supreme Court would ensure to the benefits of the petitioner even for filing income tax returns is a plea, which is not sustainable and is liable to be rejected.

The judge said the Apex court also pointed out that on the one hand, the enrolment under aadhaar card was voluntary, however, for the purpose of the Act, section 139AA makes it compulsory that for assesses to give aadhaar number, which means that in so far as income tax assesses were concerned, they have to necessarily enroll themselves under the Aadhaar Act and obtain aadhaar number, which will be their identification number, as that has become the requirement under the Act.

The Apex court also held that the contention that since enrollment under the Aadhaar Act was voluntary and cannot be made compulsory under the Act was rejected. It has also been held that the purpose behind the Act namely the IT Act was entirely different and the purpose being to curb black money, money laundering and tax evasion etc.,  It has been held that for achieving such objects, if the Parliament chooses to make the provision mandatory under the Act, the competence of the Parliament cannot be questioned on the ground that it was impermissible only because under the Aadhaar Act, the provision was directory in nature, the judge added.