The amendment brought in section 12A by the Finance Act, 2014, with effect from October 1, 2014 by way of insertion of first proviso to section 12A(2) is significant to establish the need for registration of a trust to claim exemption under section 11. Registration of the trust is mandatory. The intention of the amendment is to confer the benefits of exemption under section 11 on genuine trusts which are registered under section 12AA. The conditions laid down under sections 11 and 12 shall apply even to trusts, which are not registered under section 12AA.

On the questions whether the corpus donations in the form of voluntary contributions made with a specific direction that they would form part of the corpus of the trust were exempted under section 11(1)(d) in the absence of registration of the trust under section 12AA.  Dismissing the appeals the Court held that the contributions towards the corpus fund with specific directions could be treated as income of the assessee under section 2(24)(iia) since the assessee was not a registered charitable trust under section 12AA though the assessee did not claim exemption under section 11. Donations to the non-registered assessee could be treated as income under section 56(2)(v). (AY. 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10)