Sneha Trust for Charity and Education v. ACIT (2020) 78 ITR 25 (SMC) (SN)( Cochin) (Trib)

S. 11 : Property held for charitable purposes – Donations – If disclosure of income in hands of assessee as corpus fund and income applied for charitable purposes and assessee has due registration- Addition cannot be made as cash credits . [ S.12A, 68 ]

Tribunal held that to obtain the benefit of the exemption under section 11 the assessee is required to show that the donations were voluntary. The assessee had only disclosed its donations but failed to submit a list of donors. The fact that the complete list of donors was not filed or that the donors were not produced, did not necessarily lead to the inference that the assessee was trying to introduce unaccounted money by way of donation receipts. Section 68 have no application to the facts of the case if the assessee furnished the names and addresses of the donors to the Assessing Officer. That being so, if there was a disclosure of this income in the hands of the assessee as corpus fund and the income was applied for charitable purposes for which the assessee was created and the assessee had due registration under section 12A the Assessing Officer could not invoke the provisions of section 68 so as to sustain the addition. Accordingly the issue was remitted to the Assessing Officer with a direction to the assessee to prove that it had received the amount as donation towards corpus fund of the assessee.( AY.2008-09)