Organizing 'sankirtan' and 'bhandara' is charitable in nature; HC allows sec. 12AA registration to trust

Facts:

1)  The assessee-trust had filed application before CIT for purposes of registration under section 12AA and approval under section80G ;

2)  The CIT held that the objects like Akhand Naam Sankirtan, Thakur Sewa of Shri Girdhari Ji and organization of bhandaras on all important religious festivals were purely religious objects in nature and not in accordance with section 2(15);

3)  Accordingly, its registration application under section 12AA and approval request under section 80G were rejected. On appeal, the Tribunal held in favour of assessee. Aggrieved-CIT filed the instant appeal.

The High Court held in favour of assessee as under:

1) From the objects of the trust it could not be said that the object and purpose of establishment of trust was not genuine and that activities as delineated in the object were not carried out by the trust;

2)  'Akhand Naam Sankirtan' is one type of meditation and yoga and activity like bhandara are for providing food to persons, irrespective of any caste or religion, thus, unless it was proved that it was for any particular community or group of persons, registration under section 12AA could not be rejected;

3) Thus, no error of law was found in finding of Tribunal. – CIT v. Sri Radha Raman Niwas Trust [2014] 42 taxmann.com 77 (Allahabad)