Divya Pralokik Dham vs CIT E Lucknow

PER MANISH AGARWAL, A.M.:

The present appeal is filed by assessee against the order dated 30.12.2025 passed by Ld. Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemption), Lucknow [“Ld. CIT(E)”] u/s 12A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 [“the Act”].

At the time of hearing, no one appeared on behalf of the assessee. Therefore, the appeal is taken in the absence of the assessee and decided based on the material available on record.

The appeal filed by the assessee was delayed by 25 days for which an application for condonation of delay was filed. In the said application, it is submitted that the assessee inadvertently filed the appeal before the Lucknow Bench of Tribunal on 02.03.2026 against the order of ld. CIT(E) dated 30.12.2025 received on 23.02.2026. It was stated in the application that it was informed by the Lucknow bench that the appeal must be filed before the Delhi Benches. notice, the assessee has filed separate postal tracking report and therefore, submitted that there was no delay in filing the appeal and delay occurred being un intentional therefore the same be condoned.

Ld. CIT DR has not opposed this factual aspect and after considering the reasons stated being Bonafide error, the delay is condoned and appeal is admitted for adjudication.

From the order of ld. CIT(E), is observed from the order of ld. CIT(E) that the assessee has filed application for registration u/s 12A on 02.06.2025 and provisional registration was granted. Ld. CIT(Exemption) observed that the assessee has filed application u/s 12A(1)(ac)(iii) of the Act as against which the application should have been filed u/s 12A(1)(ac)(ii) thus, the same is not maintainable and the registration was denied.

Heard the contention of ld. CIT DR at length and perused the material available on record. As observed above, the application of the assessee was rejected on technical grounds of incorrect mentioning of section in the application filed for registration. Considering the entirety of the facts, in our considered opinion, merely for this technical error without considering the nature of activity carried out by the assessee being charitable or not, the application cannot be rejected in summary manner. Under these circumstances, we set aside the order of ld. CIT(E) and remand the matter back to the file of ld. CIT(Exemption) with the directions to ignore the section under which the application was filed and decide the issue of grant of registration u/s 12A of the Act after verifying the nature of activity carried out by the assessee whether they are charitable or not and eligible for registration u/s 12A of the Act. Assessee is also directed to file corrected form before the ld. CIT(E). With these directions, all the Grounds of appeal raised by the assessee are allowed for statistical purposes.

In the result, appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.