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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, ‘A’ BENCH, PUNE
ORDER
PER S.S. GODARA, JM :
This assessee’s appeal arises against the CIT Aurangabad’s order dated 07-07-2014 in Case No. ABD/CIT/Tech. /13-14 in proceedings u/s 12AA((1)(b)(ii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, in short “the Act”.
2. It emerges that the assessee’s instant appeal suffers from 1300 days’ delay in filing which is sought to be condoned as per it’s petition containing the following averments.
“With reference to the above mentioned subject, we would like to bring to your notice following points in support of our delay in filing an appeal case before you.
1. Our Trust applied for registration u/s 12A of the ITA, 1961 on 16/01/2014 to the earned CIT, Aurangabad. 2) The said application was rejected by the learned CIT vide order dated 07/07/2014 and which was received on 07/07/2014. 3) Trust former Chairman Shri Moreshwar Save was suffering from poor health condition from around 28/06/2014 to 29/06/2015 and not able to attend board and committee meetings. Also other trustee members are senior citizens and not aware of' the Income Tax Law, which affects in decision making about the case and further proceeding to the trustees as the highly visible representative of an organization is not well. 4) After sad demise of Shri Moreshwar Save on 29/06/2015, Mr. Mansingh B. Pawaar appointed as a Chairman on dated 11/08/2015 and work of trust is started in its way. But the trustees are not well equipped with the Income Tax law and relevant formalities. Trust also suffered loss of 3 trustees' demise in between their on post work. The copies of the death certificates are enclosed for your ready reference Sir.
5) Also election of the trust conducted and the charge taken by the newly elected body by introducing the other trustees and the change report of the same is also enclosed for your ready reference. 6) Both even though such situation is with the Trust the Trust secretary had taken enough care to file the appeal with your honour and had appointed the Legal Advocate Shri Wadekar Saheb (Poona Based Advocate) to represent the case before the Tribunal. 7) Assessee trust decided to file an appeal against an order passed by CIT under section 12AA(1)(b)(ii) of Income Tax Act, 1961. For this, trust appointed Pune based Authorized representative on their behalf to appear before the authority and to submit the case. For this assessee handed over all the required documents along with amount of fees of consultancy on dated 13/08/2014, it means well in time to file a case with tribunal. Copy of the acceptance letter of AR is attached herewith for your reference. 8) O enquiry at their own, by the newly elected body of the trust came to know that appointed AR had not submitted any case before the tribunal and not even informed the assessee about non-submission of the case in the month of March 2018. Assessee trust was in presumption that AR might have filed an appeal before the Hon'bte authority and decision is pending and the Trust was awaiting the decisions 9) Later on the appointed AR returned all the documents along with cheque of the already paid fees of dated 09/03/2018.Xerox copy of the fees paid before the due date of filing of the Appeal and the cheque returned by the AR on 09/03/2018 is attached herewith for your reference. 10) As soon as the trustees came to know about the fact, new AR was appointed and was quested to prepare the appeal. However in the meantime time limit of 60 days to proffer the appeal has expired and delay of around 1,299 days has crept into the latter. The said delay is calculated as follows: Date of receipt of order 07-07-2014 Due date to file the appeal 04-09-2014 From 04-09-2014 to 03-09-2017 1,095 days From 04-09-2017 to 26-03-2018 204 days ----------------- 1,299 days 11) Non-submission of the case in time is not because of assessees mistake. The delay is unfortunately on the part of earlier AR and no purposeful default of an assessee in submitting the appeal case in time. 12) We plead you, considering, above facts not to penalize assessee trust on mistake of other and condone the delay and oblige us.”
3. All these pleadings are further followed by corresponding annexures in the nature of death certificate dated 27-06-2014 and similar other material. The assessee has further filed its condonation affidavit dated 27- 10-2018 in very terms. We thus quote (1987) 167 ITR 471 (SC) Collector, Land Acquisition Vs. Mst. Katiji and others that all technical aspects must make a way for cause of substantive justice and condone 1300 days’ delay since it is adequately explained as neither intentional nor deliberate as prayed for by the taxpayer. Heard both the parties. Case file perused.
4. We note at the outset that learned CIT herein had declined the assessee’s section 12A registration by the following discussion. “The above mentioned trust has filed an application on 16-01-2014 in form No. 10A for Registration u/s 12A(a) of the I.T. Act. The application was appended with audit reports, copy of Memorandum of Association and other documents.
In order to verify the genuineness of the charitable activities carried out by the trust, opportunities of being heard were allowed to the applicant trust vide this office letters dated 16-01-2014 and 20-06-2014. The applicant was asked to provide the following details amongst others:- a) Evidences in support of the activities such as photographs and newspaper cuttings in respect of charitable activities undertaken by the trust. b). Bank account statement. c). Whether the donations are received through bank or otherwise? If so whether the same were deposited into the bank account? d). Whether the books of accounts are written on daily basis? Name attended in response to the given opportunities.
A report on the application was called for from AO and the Jt. CIT. Both the AO and JCIT vide their reports dated 22-04-2014 and 07-05-2014 respectively, have not recommended the case for Registration u/s 12A.
In view of the facts discussed above, I am of the considered opinion that the applicant trust has failed to explain the so called charitable activities claimed to have been undertaken by it. Therefore, the application of the trust u/s 12A is rejected.” The Revenue could hardly dispute that the foregoing rejection 5. coming from the CIT’s end has nowhere considered its object clauses in the assessee’s trust deed held as a mandatory condition in light of Ananda Social & Educational Trust Vs. CIT (2010) 272 Taxman 7 (SC). This is also coupled with the fact that the learned CIT concludes that the assessee had also not filed the requisite details in the impugned registration proceedings. Faced with this situation, we deem it appropriate to set aside the instant issue of assessee’s section 12AA registration back to the CIT for fresh appropriate adjudication as per law within three effective opportunities of hearing. Ordered accordingly.
This assessee’s appeal is allowed for statistical purposes in above terms. Sd/- sd/- (DR. DIPAK P. RIPOTE) (SATBEER SINGH GODARA) ACCOUNTANT MEMBER JUDICIAL MEMBER Pune; Dated, this 19th day of July 2022 Ankam Copy of the Order forwarded to :