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TMI Blog2013 (6) TMI 495X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... der S.12AA of the Act, since he has not examined the objects, which prima-facie indicate that they are charitable in nature - appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes. - ITA No.198/Hyd/13 - - - Dated:- 24-5-2013 - Shri B. Ramakotaiah And Shri Saktijit Dey,JJ. For the Appellant : Shri Samuel Nagdesi, AR For the Respondent : Ms. Amisha S. Gupta, DR ORDER Per B. Ramakotaiah, Accountant Member:- This is an appeal by the assessee trust against the order of the Director of Income-tax (Exemption) dated 31.12.2012, refusing to grant registration under S.12AA of the Act. 2. The above trust was incorporated on 17th May, 2012 and it filed an application in Form 10A on 15th June,2012, seeking registration under S.12AA of the Act. The Director of Income-tax(Exemption) issued a standard questionnaire dated 8.10.2012 and also requested for furnishing details on specific points and produce books of account, bills and vouchers for verification on 9.11.2012. Vide para 2 of the impugned order, the Director of Income-tax(Exemption) noted that the assessee has not commenced any activity and therefore, it is difficult to grant registration a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... en the case was posted for hearing. It was also further submitted that major details of donors, viz. their addresses, cell numbers, PAN numbers, in respect of corpus fund donations and details other donations were furnished. It is also submitted that details of application of fund on land and other infrastructure were also placed before the Director of Income- tax(Exemption), with a letter dated 07.12.2012. It was submitted that since the trust was registered only on 17th May, 2012 and since the financial year has not yet been closed, statement of accounts could not be filed, but all the relevant details upto the date of posting of the case before the Director of Income- tax(Exemption) were placed before him. Relying on the principles laid down by the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi in the case of DIT V/s. Foundation of Opthalmic Optometry Research Education Centre vide judgment dated 16.08.2012 in ITA No.1687/2010, furnishing a copy thereof before us, learned counsel submitted that since the activities have not been conducted at least for an year, the question of preparing financial statements does not arise and the learned Director of Income-tax(Exemption) erred in not register ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the Commissioner and the Commissioner may proceed with such applications under that sub-section from the stage at which they were on that day. (2) Every order granting or refusing registration under clause (b) of sub-section (1) shall be passed before the expiry of six months from the end of the month in which the application was received under clause (a) of section 12A. 10. Facially, the above provision would suggest that there are no restrictions of the kind which the Revenue is reading into in this case. In other words, the statute does not prohibit or enjoin the Commissioner from registering Trust solely based on its objects, without any activity, in the case of a newly registered Trust. The statute does not prescribe a waiting period, for a trust to qualify itself for registration. 11. If the Revenue's contentions are correct then, necessarily, a condition would have to be read in to the provision that the Commissioner should be satisfied that the Trust is in fact engaged in charitable activities which would in turn inject considerable deal of subjectivity. It is quite possible that if such flexibility is introduced, it would be susceptible to varied ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... xemption. The fact that the corpus of the trust is nothing but the contribution of ₹ 1,000 by each of the trustees as corpus fund goes to show that the trustees were contributing the funds by themselves in a humble way and were intending to commence charitable activities. It is not even the case of the Revenue that by the time the application of the assessee came to the considered by them, the assessee had collected lots of donations for the activities of the trust. On the other hand the grievance of the concerned authorities seems to be that there was no activity which could be termed as charitable as per the details furnished by the assessee, therefore. such registration could not be granted. When the trust itself was formed in January 2008 with the money available with the trust, one cannot expect them to do activity of charity immediately and because of that situation the authority cannot come to a conclusion that trust was not intending to do any activity of charity. In such a situation the objects of the trust have to be taken into consideration by the authority and the objects of the trust could be read from the trust deed itself. In the subsequent returns filed by the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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