TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2020 (1) TMI 831
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....operative, registered under the Karnataka Souharda Sahakari Act, 1997 (hereafter "1997 Act"); petitioner in W.P.No.14381/2019 is registered as the State Federal Cooperative, as provided under Section 33 of the said Act; they have knocked at the doors of writ court in substance for a prayer that they are entitled to seek deduction in respect of their income in terms of the scheme envisaged under section 80P of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereafter "1961 Act"), on the premises that they too are a Cooperative Society, on par with those registered under the provisions of Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959. 2. After service of notice, the Respondent Nos.1 & 3 are represented by their Senior Panel Counsel and the State is represented by ....
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....s: (a) sec.80P of the 1961 Act provides for deduction in respect of income of Co-operative Societies is obvious going by its very text; sub-section (1) of said section reads as under: "80P. (1) Where, in the case of an assessee being a co-operative society, the gross total income includes any income referred to in sub-section (2), there shall be deducted, in accordance with and subject to the provisions of this section, the sums specified in sub-section (2) in computing the total income of the assessee." The other provisions of this section being not of much relevance to the question being treated, are not reproduced, although they too have been looked into. Sec. 2(19) which finds a place in the Dictionary Clause of....
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....this view accords with the purposive construction of sec.80P r/w sec.2(19) of the 1961 Act; (c) in the State of Karnataka, there have been two statutes enacted by the State Legislature that relate to registration & regulation of co-operative societies viz., the Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959 ie., Karnataka Act No.11 of 1959 and the Karnataka Souharda Sahakari Act,1997 ie., Karnataka Act No.17 of 2000; both these Acts are enacted pursuant to Article 246(3) r/w Entry 32, List-II of Schedule VII of the Constitution of India; there is no other Entry to which this Act is relatable; the Legislative Entries being only the fields of legislation need to be very broadly interpreted, is the settled position of constitutional jurispruden....
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....) in the State of Karnataka; Be it enacted by the Karnataka State Legislature in the Tenth Year of the Republic of India as follows-" Similarly, the preamble to the 1997 Act reads as follows: "Whereas it is expedient to provide for recognition, encouragement and voluntary formation of co-operatives based on self-help, mutual aid, wholly owned, managed and controlled by members as accountable, competitive, self-reliant and economic enterprises guided by co-operative principles and for matters connected therewith; Be it enacted by the Karnataka State Legislature in the Forty-eighth Year of Republic of India as follows-". A perusal of these two preambles and various provisions of these two Acts leads one to an irresistibl....
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.... clauses of these Acts strengthens this view; this apart, sec.7 of the 1997 Act provides that the entity registered as a 'co-operative' shall be a body corporate, notwithstanding the conspicuous absence of the word 'society' as a postfix; sec.9 of the 1959 Act makes the entity once registered u/s.8 thereof a body corporate; both the entities have perpetual succession by operation of law; thus on registration be it under the 1959 Act or the 1997 Act, a legal personality is donned by them, so that inter alia they can own and possess the property; (f) the employment of the word "Sahakari" in the very title of the 1997 Act is also not sans any significance; 'Sahakaar' in Sanskrit is the equivalent of 'sahakaara' in Kannada which means 'co-op....