The Delhi High Court has 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.
A division bench of 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 mother's name instead of father's.
The order came on the plea of 22-year-old Himani to allot her Permanent Account Number (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.
The bench, in an interim order, directed for issuance of a PAN card without mentioning her parentage.
"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," the bench said in a recent order.
"Counsel for respondents shall obtain instructions whether in future a person applying for PAN card can be asked/required to furnish details of both father or mother with an option to indicate the parentage, he or she wants to be mentioned on the card," it said.
Himani had in her plea sought a direction to the government not to insist on mentioning the name of her father.
In her plea, Himani said 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 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 in gender bias insisted on mentioning of father's name and refused to allot PAN card to her," Himani said and claimed that she has been alloted passport, Aadhar card and election card by other authorities without insisting on mentioning of father's name.
The bench said, "As an interim measure, it is directed that PAN card shall be issued to the petitioner without mentioning her parentage on the issued card. Details of the parentage, however, will be mentioned in the records of department...
