Plea on filing IT returns without Aadhaar dismissed by Madras High Court
By Express News Service | Published: 08th November 2017 07:41 AM |
Last Updated: 08th November 2017 08:13 AM | A+A A- |
CHENNAI: Quoting Aadhaar Number or furnishing a copy of the same, as required under Sec. 139AA of the Income-Tax Act, is a must for furnishing IT Returns, the Madras High Court has ruled.
Justice TS Sivagnanam gave the ruling on November 6 last, while dismissing a petition from Thiagarajan Kumararaja praying for a directive to the Income Tax Officer, Non-Corporate Ward-1 in Chennai to grant him permission to file his income tax return for the assessment year 2017-18 either manually or through the appropriate e-filing facility without insisting on production of Aadhaar number and/or his enrolment ID as defined under Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The petitioner also sought to forbear the officer or any other authority from in any manner taking any coercive action against him under the Income Tax Act, in lieu of any obligation flowing from section 139AA of the IT Act.
It was the same judge. who had granted a stay on the applicability of the section, while passing interim orders on a similar petition from a woman advocate, last week.
In his present order, Justice Sivagnanam said a careful reading of certain portions of the judgment of Supreme Court in Binoy Viswam case, would clearly show that the Apex Court has not stayed the proviso to sub-sec. (2) of Sec.
139AA of the Act and the partial stay would be applicable only to facilitate the other transactions, which are mentioned in Rule 114B of the Rules, which pertains to transactions, in relation to which, PAN is to be quoted in all documents for the purpose of Clause (C) of Sub-Section (5) of Section 139A of the Act.
“Therefore, to state that the partial stay granted by the Supreme Court would enure to the benefit 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.
“For all these reasons, this court finds no grounds to entertain the writ petition and grant the relief sought for. Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed”, the judge said.
