VittSphere ONE Calculators Blog CA Firm CA Prabhakar Kumar · FCA · ICAI 560762
Calculators Blog Handle my notice
Case law › Income-tax Act 2025 › Chapter XVII › Section 335
Chapter XVIIwas s.11, s.12

Section 335 of the Income-tax Act, 2025

Section 335 — Regular income. Successor to s.11, s.12 of the 1961 Act.

Where this section sits

Section 335 is in Chapter XVII — Special Provisions Relating to Certain Persons, which runs from section 302 to section 355.

← Section 334  ·  Section 336 →

What this section does

The section defines what constitutes the regular income of a registered non-profit organisation for a tax year, in five clauses. Clause (a) covers income from any charitable or religious activity for which the organisation is registered, carried out by it in that tax year. Clause (b) covers income, other than income covered in clause (e), derived from any property, deposit or investment held wholly for charitable or religious purposes by the organisation in that year. Clause (c) covers income, other than income covered in clause (e), derived from any property, deposit or investment held in part for charitable and religious purposes as referred to in section 332(2)(b)(ii). Clause (d) covers voluntary contributions received in that year. Clause (e) covers gains of any commercial activity permissible under sections 344, 345 and 346, carried out in that year, computed in such manner as may be prescribed.

Why it is there

The provisions governing registered non-profit organisations work on a defined pool of income, and this section marks out that pool. Separating the four ordinary streams from the commercial one in clause (e) matters because only the last is taken at computed gains in a prescribed manner, while the others enter as they arise.

Who it applies to

What this means in practice

Clauses (b) and (c) are each expressly subject to clause (e), so income traced to a permissible commercial activity is not counted twice — it enters regular income only as the gains of that activity, computed in the prescribed manner, and not as income from the underlying property, deposit or investment. Clause (a) is limited by the terms of registration: it covers income from charitable or religious activity for which the organisation is registered, so an activity outside the registration does not come in through that door. Clause (d) brings in voluntary contributions received in the year without qualification in this section. Clause (e) is confined to commercial activity that is permissible under sections 344, 345 and 346; the section says nothing about the treatment of a commercial activity that is not permissible under those sections.

An example

Illustrative only, and invented for this page. The figures are chosen to show the rule biting, not taken from any real matter.

In a tax year a registered non-profit receives Rs. 80 lakh of voluntary contributions, Rs. 12 lakh of rent from a building held wholly for its charitable purposes, and runs a permitted commercial activity yielding gains of Rs. 6 lakh. All three are regular income — the contributions under clause (d), the rent under clause (b) and the commercial gains under clause (e). The commercial gains enter as computed gains in the prescribed manner rather than at gross receipts, and the rent, if it were traceable to that activity, would fall under clause (e) instead of clause (b).

Where you meet this section

A donor or an individual never encounters this section. It is the classification a registered non-profit works through in its own return and the one an Assessing Officer applies when deciding what falls into regular income for the year.

The words themselves

income from any charitable or religious activity, for which such non-profit organisation is registered, carried out by it in such tax year
Section 335(a), Income-tax Act, 2025.
gains of any commercial activity permissible under sections 344, 345 and 346, carried out by such registered non-profit organisation in such tax year, computed in such manner, as may be prescribed
Section 335(e), Income-tax Act, 2025.

What people get wrong

What this replaced

The correspondence is the Income Tax Department’s own, from its comparison utility for the 1961 and 2025 Acts. A renumbering is the easy half; whether the words changed is the half that decides cases.

See the full 1961 to 2025 concordance.

Rules that serve this section

Rules of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 that work section 335. Where the rule’s own heading names the section we say so; the rest are marked on reading the rule, which is our derivation and not the department’s. A rule that serves the section silently and that we have missed will not appear here.

All of them are in the Rules 2026 index.

Circulars of the Board on this section

A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. Every one below was written under the 1961 Act; it reaches this section because the department’s own concordance carries the provision it names to this one.

See every circular and notification on this section, or the circulars index.

Notifications that reach this section

A notification is made under a power the Act gives and, within that power, is law. These too were made under the 1961 Act and are placed here by the department’s concordance. We hold 708 in all; the 250 most recent are listed.

See every circular and notification on this section, or the notifications index.

Case law carried across

Read this before you rely on it. Every decision below was decided under the Income-tax Act, 1961. It appears here because it is tagged to a 1961 provision that the department’s own mapping carries to section 335. That is an inference we have drawn, not a holding on the new section: where the words changed in the move, the reasoning may not survive. Treat this as the place to start looking, not as authority on the 2025 Act.

Explainers

Read with

What this page does not tell you. It does not reproduce the section. Everything above was written from the section’s own text as the Income Tax Department publishes it — the text is here, and nothing here is advice on your facts. Where a figure matters, read the sub-section it comes from.