ST MIRA'S COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION,PUNE vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX (EXEMPTION), PUNE, PUNE

ORDER

PER VINAY BHAMORE, JM:

2. The ld CIT Exemption erred in law and on facts in rejecting application for registration u/s 12A(1)(ac)(iii) and cancelling provisional registration granted on 04/04/2022 without serving proper notice of hearing either physically or through the registered mail ID. The appellant prays for opportunity so as to explain its case.

at the time of hearing.”

3. The facts, in brief, are that the assessee is a trust, was granted provisional registration under sub clause (ac) of sub section (1) of section 12A of the IT Act on 04.04.2022 for the period from Asstt Year 2022-23 to Asstt Year 2024-25. Thereafter, the appellant trust had applied for grant of registration in Form 10AB on 26.06.2023. On receipt of the said application, ld. CIT(E), Pune had called for certain details vide letter dated 17.08.2023 and 25.10.2023 respectively. Since LD CIT(E), Pune did not find any reply from assessee trust, the application filed by the appellant trust was rejected & the provisional registration granted on 04.04.2022 was also cancelled.

4. Being aggrieved, the appellant is in appeal before us in the present appeal with the above extracted grounds of appeal.

5. Ld. AR submitted before us that ld. CIT(E) was not justified in rejecting the application for grant of registration u/s 12AB filed by the assessee. It was further submitted by ld. Counsel of the assessee that the first notice of hearing was received by the assessee through post on 28.08.2023 and the date of compliance was 31.08.2023. Therefore, a request for adjournment of 10 days 3 ITA No.64/PUN/2024 was made, and accordingly, desired details were furnished on 09.09.2023. Thereafter, the assessee did not receive any notice and waited for further order. As the process of registration was to be completed by the end of December, 2023, the assessee logged into Income Tax Portal on 07 – 08, December, 2023 and was surprised to see that its application for registration was cancelled by an order dated 16.11.2023 on the ground that a notice was issued on 25.10.2023 by email and the requisite details were to be submitted on or before 31.10.2023. As there was no reply to this notice, ld. Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemption), Pune rejected the application for registration u/s 12AB of the IT Act. In this regard, it was further submitted that from the perusal of the Income Tax Portal, it was found that the notice dated 25.10.2023 was sent on the email of Soniya Chavan, whereas the registered email on the Income Tax Portal was meenakshi.wagh@stmirascollegepune.edu.in. In this way, the notice was sent to someone else’s email and not to the assessee. Due to this fact, the assessee could not reply to the last notice which resulted in this unfortunate ex-parte order. Under the above facts and in the circumstances of the case, ld. Counsel of the assessee requested the Bench to set-a-aside the ex-parte order