In its bid to check bogus, duplicate and multiple PAN cards in the country, the Centre has deactivated as many as 11.4-lakh accounts until July this year. As per government rule, it is illegal for a person to have more than one PAN. Also, linking the PAN with the Aadhaar number is mandatory the last date for which is 31 August.
As per reports, the central government has detected several PAN cards allotted to non-existing individuals.
Explaining the reason behind deactivating the cards, the government had recently issued a statement, saying: “The uniqueness of PAN is achieved by conducting a de-duplication check on all already existing allotted PAN against the data furnished by a new applicant. Under the existing system of PAN, only demographic data is captured.”
The government also cited instances of multiple PANs allotted to one person and one PAN allotted to many people. To avoid trouble, everyone needs to check the status of his or her PAN card and also link it with the biometrics-based unique identity number Aadhaar by 31 August.
Here are the steps to check the validity of PAN card at the Income Tax e-filing website:
Log on to www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in; spot and click on ‘Know Your PAN’ option which is available under the ‘services’ column on left side.
On the next page, you need to fill up details such as name, status, date of birth and contact number.
After filling in the information, you will receive OTP on your registered mobile number. Enter OTP and hit ‘Validate’.
In case there are more than one PAN card registered with the details provided, a pop up message will appear, asking for additional information. Enter some more details such as your father’s name.
In the last step, if the PAN number is not duplicated, it will be declared ‘Active’ under the ‘Remarks’ column.