New Delhi, Sep 2 (ZEENEWS.COM) As part of the drive to weed out 13 lakh duplicate PAN cards by December, the government today said people should surrender them in the next few weeks, failing which penal action could be initiated.

"Keeping duplicate pan cards would be of no use to holders as computers blink if another number has the same five parameters as the original," Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) spokesman A K Sinha told reporters. He said that taxmen have the powers to impose a fine of Rs 10,000 on duplicate PAN card holder under section 272 (b) of the Income Tax Act.

There are 4.7 crore PAN holders in the country, Sinha said exuding confidence that Finance Minister P Chidambaram's assurance that duplicate pan cards would be wiped out by December 31.

Sinha said assesses themselves may surrender their duplicate cards or assessing officers would be issuing letters to them.

The duplicate cards were issued in 1990s when there was no centralised system of computers to cross cheque the issuance of cards.

Sinha, however, ruled out any fraud or design in issuing duplicate cards.

He said the department is assessing the possibilities of issuing biometric PAN cards, which would detect physical identities of a card holder.