A 22-year-old woman has approached the Delhi high court seeking directions to the concerned authorities to allot her a PAN card after accepting her application form with the name of her mother instead of that of her father, who had abandoned her and her mother when she was only seven months old.
Acting on the plea, the HC passed an interim order directing the authorities to issue a PAN card to the applicant, Himani, without mentioning her parentage. It asked the Centre to make its stand clear on whether an applicant for a PAN card can be given an option to mention the name of either father or mother in the form. At present, it’s mandatory to mention one’s father’s name in the application form for PAN card. A bench comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and V.P. Vaish asked the counsel for the Centre to seek instructions from the ministry and other departments concerned and inform it by November 1 whether a PAN card will be issued to an applicant who has mentioned his/her mother’s name instead of father’s.
In her plea, Himani said that in April 2009 she had applied for a PAN card but the authority did not process her form on the grounds that she had not mentioned the name of her father and had left the column blank. She claimed to have sent several representations to the authority to issue the card with the name of her mother on it but no response had come.
“Respondents on account of their policy based on gender bias insisted on mentioning of father’s name and refused to allot PAN card to her,” Himani said. She also said that she has been allotted passport, Aadhar card and election card by other authorities without insisting on mentioning of father’s name. Himani had in her plea sought a direction to the government not to insist on mentioning the name of her father as he had abandoned her and her mother when she was an infant. In its interim order directing issuance of a PAN card without mentioning her parentage, the bench said, “This suggestion may be considered seriously by the respondents because there could be other cases of similar nature. This will obliterate the requirement to replace/modify the 17-crore issued PAN cards and this will not adversely impact the existing data as an additional detail will be available.”