Mother's Name on PAN Card instead of Father's - CBDT amends forms as promised to Delhi HC
THERE was a writ petition in the Delhi High Court last year wherein the petitioner did not want to give her father's name for the purposes of issuance of PAN card, whereas the Income Tax Department insisted on the supply of the father's name. The petitioner has provided her mother's name and she has been issued a passport, aadhar card and an election I-card on that very basis.
As an interim measure, the High Court directed that PAN card should be issued to the petitioner without mentioning, her parentage on the issued card. Details of parentage, however, will be maintained in the records of the department.
The High Court asked the department to consider whether:
a person applying for PAN card can be asked/required to furnish details of both his/her father and mother, with an option to indicate the parentage, he/she wants to be mentioned on the card. The new format can be made applicable after a reasonable time. This suggestion may be considered seriously by the department because there could be other cases of similar nature.
In November 2013, the Income Tax Department informed the High Court that PAN card has been allotted to the petitioner and that the department has decided to amend the requisite form to provide a field of mother's name as an option and also give an option to not print either father's name or mothers name on the PAN card. They stated that this might take a little time as implementation would require user acceptance, testing, amendment and or changes in software.
Within six months the CBDT has acted and has amended the forms.
Forms 49A and 49AA are substituted with new forms having fields for giving the mother's name as an option. Still the father's name is required to be given even by married women, but now there is an option to have either the father's name or mother's name printed on the PAN card. If no option is given, father's name will be printed on the card.
CBDT Notification No. 26/2014, Dated: May 16, 2014