TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (6) TMI 779
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....ion of the Trust. 3. Briefly the facts emanating from the materials on record are, the assessee is a trust created by the Government of Andhra Pradesh under the A.P. Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowment Act, 1987 vide trust deed/memorandum and articles of association dated 21.07.1998. It further appears from the facts on record, the trust was created at the direction of the Hon'ble Supreme Court for the social welfare of the Archakas and other employees of temples. The corpus of the trust comprises of contributions received from various Devasthanams. The assessee trust filed an application before the DIT(E), Hyderabad on 27.06.2006 in the prescribed manner for grant of registration under section 12A of the Act. Though the DIT(E) vide impugned order dated 04.12.2006 granted registration to the assessee trust under section 12A (a) of the Act, but he granted it prospectively w.e.f. 01.04.2006 by refusing to condone the delay of 06 years 11 months 06 days, thereby rejecting assessee's claim for grant of registration from the date of creation of the trust i.e., 27.09.1998. 4. Being aggrieved of the order so passed by the DIT(E), assessee has preferred the present appeal....
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....not come in the way of substantive justice. The learned AR submitted that delay in filing of the appeals is due to a bonafide reason and not due to any deliberate latches or negligence on the part of the assessee. It was submitted that by not preferring the appeals in time, the assessee would not have gained anything, rather, the assessee ran the risk of not availing exemption. It was submitted that the assessee trust having been created with a charitable object for benefiting the archakas, delay needs to be condoned for the interest of justice. 7. The learned Departmental Representative on the other hand objected to condonation of delay. 8. We have considered rival submissions. Admittedly, there is a delay of 1757 days in filing the present appeals. Section 253(3) prescribes that an appeal before the ITAT has to be filed within 60 days from the date of receipt of the order to be appealed against. However, sub-section (5) of section 253 empowers the Tribunal to admit an appeal beyond the period of 60 days if it is satisfied that there was sufficient cause for not presenting the appeal within the prescribed period. There is no straight jacket formula to measure what constitute....
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....s concerned, there is no doubt with regard to the charitable nature of such object as the DIT(E) has himself granted registration u/s 12A of the Act, though, prospectively. In these circumstances, in our view, delay needs to be condoned, as otherwise, the assessee trust would be deprived of substantial justice. Accordingly, we condone the delay and admit the appeal for hearing. 10. So far as the merits of the issue are concerned, it is within a narrow compass as to whether assessee is entitled for registration u/s 12A of the Act from the date of creation of trust. As mentioned earlier, the DIT(E) has granted registration to the Trust prospectively with effect from 01/04/2006 on the ground that the assessee has not explained properly the delay in filing the application for registration. However as can be seen from the facts and materials on record, during the earlier round of litigation before the Tribunal the assessee had explained the cause of delay in making the application before the DIT(E) in an affidavit. The Tribunal after considering the cause shown by the assessee was of the view that there was reasonable cause for delay in filing the application for registration before ....
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....hese circumstances, we fully agree with the view expressed by the bench earlier and see no reason to take a view other than what was taken by the Tribunal in order dated 06/06/2012 referred to hereinabove. It needs to be mentioned here that the earlier order of the Tribunal was recalled due to technical reasons and not for any error of judgment or error in decision making process, hence, the conclusion drawn by the bench still holds good. Accordingly, in consonance with the direction given by this bench earlier in paragraph 11 of the order dt.6.6.2012(supra), we condone the delay in f iling application for registration before DIT(E) and remit the matter back to him with a direction to consider assessee's claim for grant of registration u/s 12A of the Act from the date of creation of trust. 12. In the result, appeals of the assessee are allowed for statistical purposes. ITA Nos. 1672 and 1673/H/2012 13. These are appeals against the order passed by the CIT(A) pertaining to the assessment years 2004-05 and 2005-06. 14. Briefly the facts are, for the assessment years 2004-05 and 2005- 06 the assessee has filed its return of income declaring NIL income after claiming exempt....