Refund: Delay in claiming refund: Power to condone delay: Section 119: A. Ys. 1995-96 to 1998-99: Refund due to charitable trust: Trust not under obligation to file return: Delay in filing return claiming refund due to bifurcation of trust: Delay had to be condoned.

The petitioner was a trust recognised under the Income-tax Act. For the relevant period, the petitioner was not required to file return of income u/s. 139. However, in order to claim refund of TDS, the petitioner filed returns claiming refunds. Since the returns were filed beyond the time limit, they were treated as invalid returns and the Assessing Officer rejected the application for the refunds. The petitioner filed applications before the Chief Commissioner u/s. 119(2) of the Act requesting to condone the delay in filing the returns claiming refunds. The petitioner explained that the delay was caused due to bifurcation of the trust. The application was rejected by the Chief Commissioner.

The Gauhati High Court allowed the writ petition filed by the petitioner and held as under:

“i) The Revenue authorities did not dispute the entitlement of the petitioner for refund of the deducted amount. The Trust in this case was being deprived of a sum of Rs. 8,93,773/- for which it could not be blamed at all. It had no liability whatsoever to pay this amount to the Revenue. Yet, the Revenue had refused to refund the sum taking a hypertechnical view of the matter.

ii) The petitioner was entitled to condonation of delay in filing the claim for refund.”