Loading judgment…
Facts
The assessee, a charitable trust, filed its return of income and obtained registration under Section 12A. The Assessing Officer (AO) disallowed the claim of application of income towards the trust's objects, corpus donations, and depreciation, treating them as capital expenditure not proved by a sale deed or registered deed. The CIT(A) dismissed the appeal ex-parte.
Held
The Tribunal found that the CIT(A) had erroneously considered Form 35 of another assessee while passing the ex-parte order. Therefore, the Tribunal set aside the order of the CIT(A).
Key Issues
Whether the CIT(A) erred in passing an ex-parte order by considering the Form 35 of a different assessee and dismissing the appeal on merits.
Sections Cited
12A, 143(2), 142(1), 11, 234A, 234B
AI-generated summary — verify with the full judgment below
Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, ‘B’ BENCH : BANGALORE
Before: SHRI WASEEM AHMED & SHRI SOUNDARARAJAN K.
ORDER
PER SOUNDARARAJAN K., JUDICIAL MEMBER
This is an appeal filed by the assessee challenging the order of the NFAC, Delhi dated 29/07/2024 in respect of the A.Y. 2013-14 with the following grounds of appeal:
1. The order of the learned Assessing Officer in so far as it is against the Appellant is opposed to law, equity, weight of evidence, probabilities, facts and circumstances of the case.
2. The learned CIT(A) has erred in dismissing the appeal by holding that the Appellant had not substantiated its claims vide documentary and other evidence before the authorities below under the facts and circumstances of the Appellant's case.
The learned CIT(A) has erred in dismissing the appeal by wrongly referring to Form 35 and Grounds of appeal
of a different assessee altogether.
4. The authorities below are not justified in adding a sum of INR. 3,88,87,980/- being the Corpus Donations received by the Appellant trust under the facts and in the circumstances of the Appellant's case.
5. The authorities below are not justified in disallowing the depreciation claimed of INR. 1,96,880/- under the facts and in the circumstances of the Appellant's case. 6.The authorities below are not justified in denying the benefit: of exemption u/s. 11 of the Act in respect of the investment made in Immovable property amounting to INR. 3,41,72,000/- under the facts and in the circumstances of the Appellant's case.
7. Without prejudice to the above, the Appellant denies itself liable to be charged to interest u/s. 234-A and 234-B of the Act, which under the facts and in the circumstances of the Appellant's case deserves to be cancelled.
8. For the above and other grounds that may be urged at the time of hearing of the appeal, your Appellant humbly prays that the appeal may be allowed and Justice rendered.”
2. The assessee is a charitable trust and filed their return of income on 23/12/2013. The assessee has also got registered u/s. 12A of the Act. The assessee’s case was selected for scrutiny under CASS and notices u/s. 143(2) and 142(1) were issued. The assessee also filed their reply with particulars and thereafter the AO not accepted the claim of application of the income towards the object of the trust for the reason that the assessee had produced only the agreement to sale and not any sale deed. The AO further on the reason that there is no registered deed for effecting the transfer of the immovable property and therefore come to the conclusion that the claim of the assessee that the income has been applied towards the capital expenditure was not proved. The AO also disallowed the depreciation of Rs. 1,96,880/-. As against the said order, the assessee filed appeal before the Ld.CIT(A).
3. Before the Ld.CIT(A), the assessee had not appeared and therefore the Ld.CIT(A) had decided the appeal ex-parte. As against the said order of the Ld.CIT(A), the assessee has preferred this appeal before this Tribunal.
At the time of hearing, the Ld.AR submitted that the Ld.CIT(A) had wrongly referred the form 35 filed by some other assessee while deciding the appeal ex-parte. We have considered the submission alongwith the records and found that the ld CIT(A) had considered the Form 35 of some other assessee and passed an exparty order after observing that the case of the appellant was examined on merits in the light of grounds of appeal and statement of facts filed. Considering the said peculiar facts and circumstances, we are inclined to set aside the order of the Ld.CIT(A) and direct the Ld.CIT(A) to consider the appeal afresh by taking into the correct form 35 filed by the assessee and thereafter decide the appeal on merits in accordance with law after hearing the assessee.
In the result, the appeal filed by the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.
Order pronounced in the open court on 06th January, 2025.