The Supreme Court will pronounce its judgement today on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of making Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and allotment of PAN.

A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan had on May 4 reserved the verdict on the pleas, challenging section 139 AA of the Income Tax Act, which was introduced through the latest budget and the Finance Act, 2017.

This section provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar for filing of income tax returns and to apply for Permanent Account Number from July 1 this year.

While opposing the government's move, the petitioners,
including CPI leader Binoy Viswam, contended that the Centre cannot "belittle" the apex court's 2015 order holding the unique identification number as voluntary.

However, the Centre contended that Aadhaar was made mandatory for allotment of PAN to weed out fake cards which were used for terror financing and circulation of black money.

The Supreme Court had observed during the hearing that it was yet to be tested whether Aadhaar violated protection of life and personal liberty granted under Article 21 of the Constitution. Its hearing is pending for an authoritative pronouncement by a five-judge Constitution Bench. #casansaar (NewsonAir)