Supreme Court of India, on Friday ruled that attaching Aadhaar number for income-tax returns will not be made mandatory for the 2017-18 financial year. However, the statement also added that it will be mandatory for all the Aadhaar holders to link their Aadhaar number with pan card.
The order was passed by a bench of Supreme Court having Justice A K Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan. During the ongoing summer vacations of the Supreme Court, the special bench had initially reserved the decision for May 4th, after it heard the arguments of attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, senior counsel Arvind Datar, Salman Khurshid, and Shyam Divan.
An amendment in IT act 139AA had made it mandatory to mention Aadhaar number while filing the income-tax returns. In its objection, three people had filed petition against the amendment and finally, Supreme Court seems to have given the verdict in their favour.