Sec. 11 & 12A of Income-tax Act, 1961— Charitable trust—at the time of making the claim of exemption under s. 11 in the return of income filed by the assessee, the compliance as required by the law i.e. of obtaining the audit report at the time of claiming exemption under s. 11 has been complied with by the assessee, thus, assessee entitled to exemption.

Facts: CIT(A) has erred in deleting the disallowance made by AO of the claim for exemption of Rs. 94,98,048 made by the assessee under s. 11 despite the fact that the assessee failed to file audit report in Form 10B along-with return of income as per the provisions of s. 12A(1)(b).

Held, that assessee obtained the copy of the audit report in Form No. 10B on 13th Aug., 2014 and the return of income was filed by the assessee on 30th Sept., 2014. It was also brought to notice that the assessee had suo motu uploaded the audit report in Form No. 10B on 15th June, 2015 which was successfully uploaded and the CPC, Bangalore has processed the return of income of the assessee only on 16th March, 2016. Thus, the requirement of law that the assessee shall have its account audited has been complied within the time prescribed by the statute since the assessee has obtained the audit report in Form No. 10B on 13th Aug., 2014 before the return of income was filed thereafter only on 30th Sept., 2014. We note that the assessee has audited its account as per law and obtained copy of the audit report in Form 10B and also taking note the Hon’ble jurisdictional High Court High Courts held that the filing of furnishing the audit report along with the return of income is directory and not mandatory. Thus, order of CIT(A) was confirmed. - ITO V/s SOCIETY FOR EDUCATION CONSCIETISATION AWARENESS & TRAINING - [2020] 205 TTJ 981 (ITAT-JODHPUR)