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TMI Blog1988 (10) TMI 77X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... emption as provided under s. 11 of the IT Act, 1961?" 2. The assessee is a company. It is a federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations ofIndia, which receives membership subscription from its members which are mainly the associations. It also receives entrance fee from its members. It holds annual convention regularly every year. It claimed exemption under s. 11 of the IT Act, 1961 and filed alongwith the return, form No. 10B being audit report under s. 12-A(b). The ITO noticing that the assessee was not registered under s. 12-A(a) of the IT Act, 1961 with the CIT, Delhi-II, held that it could not claim exemption under s. 11. The ITO took the view that the object of the assessee was not the advancement of an object of general public ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... xamining the various decisions which had been relied upon on behalf of the assessee, Tribunal took the view on the facts of the present case that assessee having been held to be entitled to exemption under s. 11 for the previous years 1976-77, 1978-79 and 1980-81, it was entitled to claim exemption under s. 11 in view of the decision of Puna Bench in the case of ITO vs. Shahji Chattarpati General Charitable Trust (1986) 26 TTJ (Pune) 262 : (1986) 15 ITD 556 (Pune). The Tribunal noticed that in the present case also the application for registration under s. 12-A was pending and had not been rejected. Even for the subsequent asst. yr. 1984-85 the learned CIT(Appeals) had himself accepted the existence of 'charitable purpose' under s. 2(15) an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... an unfair advantage simply because legal devices provide such an opportunity. Next he referred to another decision of the Supreme Court in the case of State of Maharashtra vs Narayan Venkatesh Deshpande AIR 1976 (SC) 1204 wherein Bhagwatin J. held that the Governments should not adopt a litigious approach and waste public revenues on fruitless and futile litigation, where there are no chances of success. On the question of allowability of costs, reliance was placed by Shri Juneja on the decision of the Hon'ble Rajasthan High Court in the case of ITO vs. Kamal and Co. (1988) 24 STL 198 (Raj). In that case the Board of Revenue in Rajasthan had allowed costs to the opposite parties for verification of memo of appeal even when there was no prov ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... be emphasised that such power has to be exercised in a suitable case if the facts so warrant. In the present case we do not consider that on facts any award of costs would be justified. It could not be said that the reference application of the Department for referring the proposed question is either false or vexatious or such as to justify the award of costs on any other grounds. The request of the assessee-respondent is, therefore, not acceptable. 8. In the result the reference application is rejected. P.J. GORADIA, A.M.: Though I agree with the conclusion on point of costs discussed in para 7 of the order passed by my learned brother I will only highlight that the Tribunal has the inherent power to award costs if the facts in a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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