2020 (9) TMI 728
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....ry condition u/s 12AA(3) and/or 12AA(4) for the rejection/cancellation of the trust are not being fulfilled and as such there was no lawful basis whatsoever to reject the application u/s for registration u/s. 12A" 2.1 The grounds of appeal in ITA No.9349/Del/2019 are as under:- "That on the facts and circumstances of the case and in Law, the Ld. CIT(Exemptions) have erred in rejecting the application of the Appellant Trust for exemption u/s 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961 as it was rejected on the basis of rejection of application of registration u/s 12AA, which was rejected on mere conjectures & surmises and not appreciating the fact that the activities of the Appellant Trust are completely genuine and are in conformity with the objects of its Trust Deed and as such the mandatory condition u/s 12AA(3) and/or 12AA(4) for the rejection/cancellation of the registration of the trust are not being fulfilled and as such there was no lawful basis whatsoever to reject the application u/s 80G." 3. Briefly stated facts of the case are that the applications filed by the assessee trust for registration under section 12AA of the Act and exemption under section 80G of the Act, have been rej....
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....consciousness, was admitted to the hospital and it took him few months to get recovered from it. 6. In this regards, reliance is placed by us on the numerous binding judgements of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, as under: 1. Collector of Land Acquisition V Master kastiji -167ITR 471 (SC) 2. G. Ramegowda v. Special Land Acquisition Officer, [1998] 2 SCC 3. N.Balkrishnan V M.M.Krishna Murthy AIR 1998 se 3222 4. Office of the Chief Post Master General Versus Living Media India Ltd. 2012 348 ITR 7 5. N. Balakrishnan v. M. Krishnamurthy [1998] 7 SCC 123 6. State of MP Vs. Pradeep Kumar (2000) 7 SC 372, 376-77) cited on page no. 12747 In Book of Shri Chaturvedi and Pithisaria. 7.Theprincipleratios which emerge out of the aforestated judgements of the Hon'ble Apex Court are as under: (i) Any appeal or any application, other than an application under any of the provisions of Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, may be admitted after the prescribed period if the appellant or the applicant satisfies the court that he had sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal or making the application within such period. (ii) Ordinarily a litigant does not stand to benefit by ....
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....he Hon Bench on the last date of hearing. The authenticity of documents that were not available earlier, and have subsequently been filed, cannot be relied upon. b) It is only the Settler of the Trust, Mr Naresh Kumar Gupta who was unwell. As persection253 (6)of the Act, "An appeal to the Appellate Tribunal shall be in prescribed fo rm and shall be verified in the prescribed manner...." A person who is competent to sign the return of income u/s140 of the Act can validly sign/verify the appeal memo. c) Section 140(e) of the Act, with reference to the application of an association, states that the Principal Officer or member of the association can sign there turn. d) The definition of Principal Officer is given in section 2(35) of the Act, where it is stated in clause (a) to section 2(35) that Secretary, Treasurer, Manager and Agent of such association or Principal Officers for the purposes of the act. 4. It is therefore submitted that nowhere in the Act is it provided that only the Settler of the Trust can file an appeal before the Hon Tribunal. Even if the settler was unwell, that did not preclude the other Trustees/Principal Officer/Treasurer etc from filing the appeal wit....
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....le appeal to the Tribunal within 60 days thereafter, but the appeals have been filed on 04.12.2019 and thus there is a delay of 158 days in filing the appeals. Shri Naresh Kumar Gupta was admitted to the Hospital on 04.06.2019 and discharged on 13.06.2019. He was advised bed rest and he consulted to cardiologist from time to time on various dates i.e. 19.10.2019 (PB- 57); 19.09.2019 (PB-58); 20.08.2019 (PB-59); 17.10.2019 (PB-60); 20.06.2019 (PB-61). On perusal of the discharge summary and medical prescription by doctors, there is no doubt that the settler and managing trustee was suffering from serious illness and could not pay attention to the issue of filing appeals of the assessee trust on time. On the issue as why the other trustee(s) did not file those appeals, the Ld. Counsel submitted that the impugned order was served through email address of the son of Sh. Naresh Kumar Gupta, and thus other Trustees were not aware of the Income-Tax proceedings of the trust. In our opinion, the illness of settler and managing trustee and the impugned order being not in the reach of other trustees, is a reasonable cause for delay in filing the appeals. By making the delay, the assessee tru....