Maneka Gandhi, Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development, said that those children who are adopted by single mothers or whose mothers are divorced should be given the option of dropping their father’s name if they choose to apply for PAN cards, senior officials said.
ALSO READ: Karnataka waives off massive farmer loans; other takeaways from maiden budget
At present, it is mandatory to mention the father’s name in the PAN card, it is a unique ten-digit alphanumeric identity that the Income Tax department allots to each tax payer. Maneka Gandhi wrote to Piyush Goyal to re-examine the PAN card form.
Maneka Gandhi argued that there are some ladies who get separated from their husbands and don’t want to use their ex-husbands’ name in filling the PAN card form. “Keeping in view the sensitivity of such single mothers, it is important to give them the option of not having to mention the names of their ex-husbands on the statutory applications required to be filed before different government authorities,” Gandhi has written in the letter.
The minister has also said that single women are also adopting children and her ministry is giving priority for such cases. “In such cases, there is no father of the child whose PAN number is being requested for,” the letter further says.
ALSO READ: Sunanda Death Probe: Shashi Tharoor granted anticipatory bail by Delhi Court
In 2016, the ministry also disapproved the official requirement to get their husbands’ signature as well as a no-objection certificate while applying for their children’s passport. Now, in the online application form, it requires either the father or mother’s name. It was Gandhi who took the matter to Sushma Swaraj after Priyanka Gupta, a single mother, who launched an online campaign against this move.