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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, PUNE BENCH “A”, PUNE
Before: SHRI S. S. GODARA & SHRI INTURI RAMA RAO
ORDER PER INTURI RAMA RAO, AM : These are the appeals filed by the assessee being aggrieved by the order passed by the ld. Commissioner of Income Tax, Exemption, Pune [‘CIT, Exemption’] dated 20.09.2023. 2. First, we shall take up the appeal of the assessee in for adjudication. ITA No.1211/PUN/2023 : 3. This appeal is filed by the assessee directed against the order passed by the ld. CIT, Exemption u/s 12AB r.w.s. 12A(1)(ac)(vi) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’).
2 & 1212/PUN/2023 4. Briefly, the facts of the case are that the appellant is a charitable trust registered under the provisions of Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950 on 09.01.2020. It is formed with the objects of Indian Native Breed Cow cultivation, development, protection and awareness etc. The appellant trust had applied for grant of registration u/s 12AB r.w.s. 12A of the Act in Form 10A on 24.12.2021. Thereafter, the appellant trust had applied for grant of registration in Form 10AB on 17.03.2023. On receipt of the said application, the ld. CIT, Exemption had called for certain details vide letter dated 29.05.2023. The said letter was duly complied with by the appellant trust on 12.06.2023. However, on going through the said information filed by the assessee, the ld. CIT, Exemption had sought further information vide letter dated 06.09.2023 requiring the appellant trust to comply with the said notice on or before 11.09.2023. However, for the reasons best known to the appellant trust, the said notice remain un-responded. In the circumstances, the ld. CIT, Exemption had rejected the application filed by the appellant trust was also cancelled the provisional registration granted on 27.05.2021.
3 & 1212/PUN/2023 5. Being aggrieved, the appellant is in appeal before us in the present appeal.
The ld. AR submits that the appellant could not comply with the notice dated 06.09.2023 for the reasons that the appellant is not aware of the said notice and, therefore, prayed that the matter be remanded to the ld. CIT, Exemption for de novo consideration.
On the other hand, ld. CIT-DR objects to remand the proceedings for the reasons that the appellant trust could not comply with the notice of hearing dated 06.09.2023.
We heard the rival submissions and perused the materiel on record. On mere perusal of the impugned order, it would be clear that the ld. CIT, Exemption had rejected the application for grant of registration solely on the ground that the appellant trust could not respond to the notice of hearing dated 06.09.2023. We also note that the hearing notice dated 06.09.2023 was required to be complied with on or before 11.09.2023, which means the appellant trust was given merely 4 days to respond to the hearing notice, which is unreasonable short period of time. The Standard Operative Procedure (‘SOP’) issued by the CBDT dated 19.11.2020, wherein, minimum period of 15 days is required to be given to the assessee to 4 ITA Nos.1211 & 1212/PUN/2023 comply with notices u/s 142(1) from the date of issue of the notice. Recently, the Hon’ble Delhi High Court in the case of Dauphin Travel Marketing Private Limited vs. ITO in W.P.(C) 8870/2023 & CM Nos.33516-17/2023 dated 05.07.2023 taking note of this SOP held that the grant of insufficient time to respond the notice violates the principles of natural justice and, therefore, set-aside the assessment. Thus, it is clear that the appellant was given unreasonably short period of time to respond to the notice, which is against the principles of natural justice. Therefore, we are of the considered opinion that the impugned order passed by the ld. CIT, Exemption is in violation of principles of natural justice by giving unreasonable short period of time to respond the hearing notice. Therefore, we are of the considered opinion that it is most appropriate to set-aside the impugned order and remand the proceedings to the ld. CIT, Exemption for de novo disposal of the application in accordance with law after affording due opportunity of being heard to the appellant.
In the result, the appeal filed by the assessee in ITA No.1211/PUN/2023 stands partly allowed for statistical purposes.