AKHIL Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat submitted a memorandum to Union Railway Minister, Chairman of Railway Boards and General Managers requesting them to either withdraw the pan card as one of the prescribed proofs of identification for tatkal ticket reservation or amend the rules as the pan card used in the reservation is being widely misused by some people.
As per the Commercial Circular of 28.01.2011, the Tatkal tickets are issued only on production of one of the eight prescribed proofs of identity. One among them is pan card. According to the memorandum the details of the proof are captured by the system and indicated on reserved tickets as well as on the reservation charts. This practice has become a boon for the benami transactions by some people. In an attempt to combat black money, the Government of India by Finance Act 2012 has made it mandatory for certain traders like jewellery dealers to collect tax (TCS) from customers on purchase of jewellery exceeding Rs five lakh. While complying with TCS rules for collection, payment and uploading of TCS information (E-filing of TDS returns), the jewellery dealers have to furnish PAN of customers. For certain customers, it is not convenient to provide PAN as they may have constraints in explaining the source. In such cases to accommodate high net worth customers, unscrupulous traders have an easy source of benami PAN particulars from reserved railway passengers chart.
(FOC)
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