TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (7) TMI 14
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....IT(A)"], for the assessment year 2017-18. 2. The solitary grievance of the assessee is against the denial of deduction under section 80P of the Act. 3. The brief facts of the case pertaining to this issue, as emanating from the record, are: The assessee is a primary agricultural credit society registered under the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act. For the year under consideration, the assessee did not file its original return of income. Based on the information that the assessee has made cash deposits in his bank account maintained with district co-operative banks during the demonetization period and no return of income is filed by it, notice under section 142(1)(i) of the Act was issued to the assessee directing it to file the retur....
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....ranting the deduction under section 80P of the Act. 4. In its appeal before the learned CIT(A), the assessee submitted that it could not file the return of income for the year under consideration due to the delay in getting the departmental audit report. Further, the assessee claimed that it was under a bona fide belief that the assessee being a co-operative society, its income is exempt under section 80P of the Act, hence, the return of income is not necessary. 5. The learned CIT(A), vide impugned order, dismissed the appeal filed by the assessee on the basis that the claim of deduction under section 80P of the Act was never made by the assessee through filing of return or by filing a belated return through condonation of delay proce....
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..... Accordingly, the lower authorities denied the claim of the assessee under section 80P of the Act on the basis of the provisions of section 80A(5) of the Act, which reads as follows: - "(5) Where the assessee fails to make a claim in his return of income for any deduction under section 10A or section 10AA or section 10B or section 10BA or under any provision of this Chapter under the heading "C.-Deductions in respect of certain incomes", no deduction shall be allowed to him thereunder." 9. We find that the issue of whether the assessee is entitled to claim deduction under section 80P of the Act in the absence of a return of income is no longer res integra and has been decided in favour of the Revenue by the Hon'ble Jurisdiction....
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....ot be allowed the deduction, unless the return in question was filed within the due date prescribed under section 139(1). Thus, it is clear that the statutory scheme permits the allowance of a deduction under section 80P of the IT Act only if it is made in a return recognised as such under the IT Act, and after 1-4-2018, only if that return is one filed within the time prescribed under section 139(1) of the Act. As the return in these cases, for the assessment years 2009-10 and 2010-11, were admittedly filed after the dates prescribed under sections 139(1) and 139(4) or in the notices issued under section 142(1) and section 148, the returns were indeed non-est and could not have been acted upon by the Assessing Officer even though they were....
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....on 80AC by the Finance Act 2018 fortifies the view that we have taken for, it makes the claim for deduction under section 80P conditional on filing a return within the due date prescribed under section 139(1) of the IT Act. In other words, the pre-condition for claiming the deduction under section 80P of the IT Act has now been made more stringent by reducing the time available to an assessee for making the claim. 14. Before parting with these cases, we must also address the arguments of the learned counsel for the appellant/assessee relying on the provisions of section 139(8)/(9) and section 234A of the IT Act. A reading of the provisions of section 139(8) and (9) of the IT Act clearly reveals that even under those provisions, the....