Director of Income Tax vs Sindhi Panchayat

D.K. Jain, J.

CM 59 of 2002

Allowed subject to just exceptions.

IT Appeal No. 139 of 2002

This is an appeal u/s 260A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ''the Act'') arising out of the order of the Tribunal dated 31-10-2001 in IT Appeal No. 1243 (Delhi) of 1995, pertaining to the assessment year 1990-91.

Briefly stated facts giving rise to the present appeal are :

While completing assessment for the relevant assessment year, the assessing officer disallowed exemption to the assessed u/s 11 of the Act on solitary ground that audit report u/s 12AB of the Act was not furnished along with the return. The assessment was also completed u/s 144 of the Act.

Aggrieved by the said action of the assessing officer, the assessed-trust preferred an appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals). While holding that the assessed was entitled to exemption u/s 11, the Commissioner (Appeals) accepted the stand of the assessed that a detailed audit report dated 4-2-1991 was in fact submitted. It is also recorded that on being asked, a copy of the said audit report was produced before the Commissioner (Appeals). Despite the said categorical finding of the Commissioner (Appeals), for the reasons best known to the revenue, it took the matter in appeal to the Tribunal. As expected, the revenue''s appeal was dismissed by the Tribunal. While holding that there was no infirmity in the order of the first appellate authority, the Tribunal also made the following observations :

"Even if audit report is not taken into consideration, then in that case also it is not a case of addition, as undisputedly the corpus donation during the year were to the tune of Rs. 4,03,243.30 paise against which the assessed had incurred expenditure during the year at Rs. 5,01,263, which clearly establishes that expenses were more than the corpus fund received as donation during the year. I have also seen the order of the immediately preceding year, i.e., assessment year 1989-90 and found that the assessing officer himself allowed the exemption u/s 11 to the assessed by observing that all the conditions are fulfilled by the assessed. Therefore, in view of these facts and circumstances and in view of the reasoning given by the Commissioner (Appeals), I confirm the order of the Commissioner (Appeals)."

Hence, the present appeal.

We have heard, Mr. R.D. Jolly, the learned senior standing counsel for the revenue. In the present appeal, it is not the case of the revenue that the aforesaid finding recorded by the Commissioner (Appeals) and affirmed by the Tribunal with regard to the existence of audit report u/s 12AB and its production before the Commissioner (Appeals), is erroneous. Even the afore-extracted observations of the Tribunal are not under challenge.

The aforenoted findings are pure findings of fact and no question of law, much less a substantial question of law, arises out of the order of the Tribunal. The appeal is, accordingly, dismissed.