TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (9) TMI 316
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....ereinafter referred to as 'the Act') relating to the Assessment Year 2023-24. 2. The brief facts of the case are that the assessee is a public charitable trust registered u/s. 12AB of the Act and filed its return of income for the Assessment Year 2023-24 in ITR-7 on 05.11.2023 declaring 'Nil' income after claiming exemption u/s. 11 of the Act. The assessee filed audit report in Form 10B on 28.10.2023 instead of the newly applicable Form 10BB being the very first year of the changeover in the audit-report applicable for the present Asst. Year 2023-24. The return was processed u/s. 143(1) of the Act vide intimation dated 25.11.2024 and denied the entire exemption u/s. 11 of the Act for not filing Form 10BB and determined the income....
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....te filing of Form 10BB is no more res integra since various Benches of the Tribunal held in favour of the assessee. Recently the Hon'ble Jurisdictional High Court in the case of Khandelwal Vaishya Samaj Charitable Trust -Vs- CIT(E) in Civil Writ Petition No. 5829/2020 vide judgment dated 03.09.2025 held as follows:- "13. There is no lack of bona fide imputable to petitioner. That apart, in the present case, the delay was caused due to the fact that staff of CA Firm met with an accident which is beyond control. Therefore, the delay was not deliberate and cannot be attributed to petitioner. Thus, we are of the considered opinion that the application for condonation of delay dated 14th August 2019 ought to have been allowed. Due to bo....
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....ed. 16. We find support for this view of ours in the judgment of Co-ordinate Bench of this Court at Principal Seat, Jodhpur in the matter of Manav Seva Samiti v Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax³ and judgment of Bombay High Court in Al Jamia Mohammediyah Education Society vs. Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions) Mumbai, Union of India which were authored by one of us (the Chief Justice) where paragraph 6 reads as under: "6. Admittedly, Petitioner is a charitable trust. Admittedly, Petitioner has been filing its returns and Form 10B for AY 2015-16, for AY 2017-18 to AY 2021-22 within the due dates. On this ground alone, in our view, delay condonation application should have been allowed because the failure ....
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....nadvertence of its advisor. The net result of the impugned order is in effect that the petitioner's claim of inadvertent mistake is sought to be characterised as not bona fide. The court is of the opinion that an assessee has to take leave of its senses if it deliberately wishes to forego a substantial amount as the assessee is ascribed to have in the circumstances of this case. "Bona fide" is to be understood in the context of the circumstance of any case. Beyond a plea of the sort the petitioner raises (concededly belatedly), there can not necessarily be independent proof or material to establish that the auditor in fact acted without diligence. The petitioner did not urge any other grounds such as illness of someone etc., which could....
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.... 17. In our view also, it does not appear that assessee petitioner was lethargic or lacked bona fide in making claim beyond the period of limitation. In fact, we do not understand why would any party, who is entitled to claim, would intentionally delay in uploading the required documents. 18. A similar view was taken in Shree Jain Swetamber Murtipujak Tapagachha Sangh Vs. Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemption) and Anr.5 19. In our view, therefore, petition has to be allowed. We hereby condone delay. Rule made absolute in terms of prayer clause (a) and (b), which reads as under: a) The application filed by the Petitioner-trust on dated 14.08.2019 ("Annexure-P/8") before Respondent No. 1 for condoning the delay be ....