In a written reply, the Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar recently informed the Rajya Sabha that as of 27th July, 11,44,211 PAN Cards have been deleted or deactivated after identifying specific cases where multiple cards were found to be allotted to the same person. 

Since a person cannot have more than one PAN card, a penalty of â¹10,000 will be imposed on anyone with multiple cards, under section 272B of the Income-Tax Act, 1961. 

In case a person has been allotted any additional cards, they should surrender it immediately. 

Since there is so much confusion surrounding PAN cards, here's your step by step guide to check whether your card is still valid or not.

1. First you have to go to  www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in and click on ‘Know Your PAN', which can be found on the left side under the 'Services' section.

2. After clicking on ‘Know Your PAN', the site will redirect you to a page where you are required to fill in your details like name, status, date of birth and contact number.

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3. After submitting the required details, the site will take you to another page where you will have to put in the OTP sent to your registered mobile number. 

4. After entering the OTP, click on validate. 

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5. Now, if your card has not been deactivated, the next page will show your PAN card details as ‘Active'.

6. But, in case the same personal details have been used for more than one PAN card registration, a pop up message will appear that says, “There are multiple records for this query. Provide additional information.”