TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2015 (8) TMI 1364
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....ociety. Aggrieved by the said order, the assessee preferred an appeal before the I.T.A.T., Chandigarh. The I.T.A.T., Chandigarh Bench 'A' vide its order dated 23.1.2014 held as under : 'In the interest of justice, we are of the view that the matter needs to be restored back to the Commissioner of Income Tax to decide the same de-novo after taking into consideration the facts and circumstances in totality both in respect of the aims and objects of the assessee society and also the activities which have been carried on by the assessee society and after considering the same necessary order may be passed by the Commissioner of Income Tax in accordance with law. At this juncture, we are not commenting upon the fact that whether the assessee society is engaged in charitable activities or not. The said aspect will be verified by the Commissioner of Income Tax in line with the provisions of section 12A of the Act and then the issue be decided in accordance with law. The grounds of appeal raised by the assessee are allowed for statistical purposed'. 3. In order to comply with the order of the I.T.A.T., the case was again taken up by the learned Commissioner of In....
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....unded, without any basis and as such the order is arbitrary and unjustified. 3. That the registration has been refused only on the basis of suspicion, conjectures and surmises which is not permitted under the Law and as such the order refusing registration is illegal, arbitrary and unjustified. 4. That the Ld. Commissioner of Income Tax has further erred in holding that the object of the trust is against the spirit of Section 13(l)(b) of the Act which is unfounded, without any basis and as such the order is arbitrary and unjustified. 5. That the order of the Ld. Commissioner of Income Tax is erroneous, arbitrary, opposed to law and facts of the case and is, thus, untenable.' 6. The learned counsel for the assessee while arguing before us submitted that the order of the learned Commissioner of Income Tax rejecting the application for registration under section 12AA of the Act is not as per law. He tried to resolve all the reasons for said rejection made by the learned Commissioner of Income Tax as reproduced hereinabove. Regarding Point Nos. (i) and (ii) i.e. no charitable activities were being carried out by the assessee and no funds were applied t....
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....t the objects of the society are for furtherance of charity to any specific sect or biradari. In view of these submissions, it was prayed that the order of the learned Commissioner of Income Tax may be set aside. 7. The learned D.R. relied upon the order of the learned Commissioner of Income Tax. He distinguished the case of Suchinta Educational Society (supra) relied upon by the learned counsel for the assessee as in that case, it was only the first year of the working of the society, which is not the case of the present assessee. Further, he stated that nowhere the assessee had been able to bring on record the teachings of Bhai Mansa Singh Ji on the basis of which the society was created. He also relied upon the judgment of Hon'ble Madhya Pradesh High Court in the case of Shri Dhakad Samaj Dharamshala Bhawan Trust v. CIT [2008] 302 ITR 321. 8. We have heard the rival submissions and perused the material available on record. From the perusal of the order of the learned Commissioner of Income Tax running into eight pages, it is quite clear that the learned Commissioner of Income Tax had rejected the application for registration under section 12A of the Act on the basis of....
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....ect, as reproduced hereinabove, was against the spirit of section 13(1)(b) of the Act. However, while going through the said amended objects we do not find that the objects were confined towards any particular sect or biradari. It has been clearly mentioned that the society had to work for the benefit of poor and general public at large and these activities are to be based in consonance with the teachings of Bhai Mansa Singh Ji. It is not a case that the charity has to be done for the followers of Bhai Mansa Singh Ji only. Further in our opinion, the provisions of section 13(1)(b) of the Act can be invoked only at the time of making assessment of the entity registered under section 12AA of the Act. At the stage of granting registration under section 12AA of the Act, the learned Commissioner of Income Tax should not get carried away by the provisions of this section. 11. At the time of granting registration, the learned Commissioner of Income Tax has to confine himself to the twin conditions for registration i.e. the objects of the trust being charitable and the activities being genuine. It is not the stage in which the learned Commissioner of Income Tax should be commenting on t....