Shikshan Prasarak Mandali, the education institution which runs prominent colleges and school like S P College, Nutan Marathi Vidyalaya has been stripped off the charitable institute status. The 125 years old institute faced action from Income Tax Commissioner, Pune for accepting donations for admissions.
The IT department had conducted raids in Mumbai office of the institution on July 21, 2008. During the raids, the department had unearthed Rs 22,12,739 from TDM laboratory and Rs 10 Lakh from Anant Mate, trustee of the institution and vice-president of regulatory board. The department had also seized documents and received affidavits from the parents.
The then IT commissioner had cancelled the charitable institution status of Shikshan Prasarak Mandali based on those findings on September 24, 2009. Mate had claimed that Rs 8 Lakhs of that amount was his personal money. But the IT commissioner observed that he could not show the source of the income.
The institution had filed a petition in Bombay High Court against the order claiming that the IT commissioner had not given a chance for explication. A bench consisting Justice Daga and Justice Kantawala of Bombay High Court on July 6, 2010 ordered the commissioner to hear the institution’s side and take a decision within two weeks.
Accordingly, IT commissioner Simar Singh Negi recently ordered to cancel the charitable institution status of the institution. This means the institution has to pay normal income tax without any concessions. It was given this status in 1973 and has since enjoyed many types of rebates and concessions.
Shikshan Prasarak Mandali has a strong presence in the education field of Maharashtra and the decision is supposed to have widespread repercussions. It runs S P College, Nutan Marathi Vidyalaya in Pune; Ruia and Podar Colleges and Velingkar Institute of Management in Mumbai and many other institutes.
