1980 (1) TMI 51

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.... exemption under section 11 ? I.T.R. No. 32 of 1977: " Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal is right in upholding the Appellate Assistant Commissioner's order deleting the addition of Rs. 40,290 made by the Income-tax Officer? " The amount referred to in the second question is claimed to be chargeable by the revenue on the plea that the assessee-trust is a private trust. The answer to this question, therefore, also depends on the answer to the first question and so need not be separately dealt with. The assessee is a trust known as Smt. Guryani Brij Ballabh Kaur Trust, Kartarpur. For the assessment year 1971-72, it was assessed as an association of persons because the ITO negatived the plea that it was....

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....in the beginning, in the middle or in the end, it does not determine the factor of the main object. What is the main object ? This question will have to be considered in the totality of the objects of the trust. There is nothing to show that the funds of the trust can be utilised for personal purposes by the trustees. From a perusal of the objects, it is clear that the funds of the trust are to be utilised for charitable purposes as defined in section 2, clause (15), of the Act 1961. " Mr. Awasthy, the learned counsel for the revenue, has advanced a two-fold argument to challenge the finding of the Tribunal, namely, that the first two objects of the trust (a) to repair and maintain the samadhs of the ancestors of the family of the Guru of ....

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....ue would have certainly prevailed if the samadhs were those of ordinary persons having no sanctity for the general public. But where the samadhs are held in reverence and people at large come to pay homage and worship at the samadhs, the maintenance of the same would certainly be a public purpose of religious nature. Similarly, the purpose of holding of mela at such samadhs is to propagate and remind the people of the teachings of the Guru in whose memory the mela is held. This, again, would be a religious and not a secular purpose as advocated by Mr. Awasthy. We are, therefore, unable to agree with the learned counsel for the revenue that the maintenance of the samadhs and the holding of the mela is a non religious and secular purpose. But....