Donations to Shirmoni Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee Gurdwaras eligible for Income Tax Exemption, rules ITAT [Read Order]

In a major relief to the Donors of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee Gurdwaras, the Amritsar Bench of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) ruled that donations made to the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, which controls the functioning of most of the historical gurdwaras in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, will now be eligible for tax exemption.

The assessee, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee had filed an application for registration under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act to the Commissioner of Income Tax, Amritsar, but it was rejected in 2009 on the ground that the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee is a religious body working for a particular religion only.

The assessee challenged the order and filed an appeal before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Amritsar.

The chief secretary Harjinder Singh Dhami, who is also an advocate, said the SGPC had been struggling to get this recognition since 1984. The SGPC had filed an application calling for tax exemptions to its donors 12 years ago, but it was rejected by the then Income Tax Commissioner.

The two-member bench of Judicial Member Lalit Kumar and Accountant Member ML Meena of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Amritsar, granted an exemption under Section 80G in favour of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.

“The programmes conducted by the Society “are open for public at large without any distinction of caste, creed or religion and the benefits of these programmes held at the meeting house are available to the general public at large and (ii) priests are not managing the affairs of the society, have not been shown by the Revenue to be perverse. It is not the percentage of expenditure on persons not belonging to the religious community that mattered. What was significant was that there were donations made by the Society for the general public utility. This showed that it was not exclusively for the benefit of one particular religious community,” the ITAT noted.

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