Swasth Foundation & Anr Vs CIT (Exemptions) & Ors (Bombay High Court)
The petition concerned Assessment Year 2015–16 and challenged an order dated 12 March 2025 passed under Section 119(2)(b) of the Income Tax Act. The order rejected the petitioner’s application of 16 November 2023 seeking condonation of delay in filing Form No. 9A and held that the petitioner, a charitable trust, ought to have filed Form No. 9A manually for Assessment Year 2015–16 even though mandatory e-filing began only from Assessment Year 2016–17. As a result, the petitioner was denied the accumulation claimed under clause (2) of the Explanation to Section 11(1).
The petitioner, a registered charitable trust operating low-cost health centres in Mumbai slums, received a grant of Rs. 2,47,66,000 on 23 March 2015 from Jamsetji Tata Trust for running primary health centres. The amount was sanctioned just eight days before the end of the financial year and could not be fully utilized within that short period. The petitioner asserted that the entire amount was utilized during Financial Year 2015–16, which was also affirmed in an additional affidavit filed on 25 September 2025.
The petitioner stated that under clause (2) of the Explanation to Section 11(1), as applicable during Financial Year 2014–15, the option to accumulate income could be exercised by a written intimation before expiry of the time limit prescribed under Section 139(1). There was no prescribed format then. It claimed to have exercised the option on 12 September 2015, before filing its return the same day, through its audit report in Form 10B. In Form 10B, the petitioner declared the deemed application of income of Rs. 2,21,56,903. The petitioner argued that the assessment order dated 21 December 2017 incorrectly held that the return was filed late on 30 November 2015 and that no written option was filed. A demand of Rs. 98,04,430 was raised.
