By PTI | Updated: May 02, 2017, 05.37 PM IST
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NEW DELHI: The government today defended in the Supreme Court its decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for issuing of PAN cards, saying it was done to curb the use of fake PAN cards across the country.
Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi told a bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan that the programme of PAN had become suspect as it could be faked while Aadhaar is a "secure and robust" system by which the identity of an individual cannot be faked.
The AG said that due to Aadhaar, government has saved over Rs 50,000 crore on the schemes to benefit the poor as well as the pension schemes.
He said that around 10 lakh PAN cards have been cancelled, while out of the 113.7 crore Aadhaar cards issued, no case of duplication has been found by the government
He also said that Aadhaar was an effective tool to check the menace of terror funding and circulation of black money.
"The idea behind Aadhaar is to make a secure and robust system by which the identity of a person cannot be faked," the Attorney General told the court, which would continue hearing the arguments tomorrow
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