Section 12AB(1)

Section 12AB(1) — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 12AB(1), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Pavai Varam Educational Trust v PCIT (Central), Chennai ITATHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The PCIT cancelled my registration under s.12AB(4) for a specified violation resting entirely on an addition made in assessment. The Tribunal has since deleted that addition. Does the cancellation survive?
  No. Where the order under s.12AB(4) is founded entirely on the outcome of another proceeding, its fate depends on the sustainability of that foundational finding; once the Tribunal reversed the quantum findings on which the alleged specified violation rested, the cancellation could not survive independently. The Tribunal set aside the cancellation and directed restoration of the registration.
• Advaya Charitable Foundation v CIT (Exemptions), Mumbai ITATHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  My Form 10AB for final registration under s.12AB was rejected as time-barred because I missed the 30 June 2024 date in Circular 7/2024. Is anything left to me?
  Yes. From 1 October 2024 a proviso to s.12A(1)(ac) lets the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner condone a delay in filing the application where he considers there is reasonable cause, and the Tribunal restored the matter to the CIT(E) with liberty to the trust to make a condonation application. The delay itself was not in dispute; what saved the trust was that the rejection order recorded no defect in its objects, its activities or its documents, its bona fides were not questioned, and the delay did not prima facie appear deliberate.
• Statutory position — s.12AB registration periods, the Finance Act 2025 ten-year proviso for small trusts, and the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024 power to condone a late application CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  How long does registration under s.12AB now run, is the ten-year period for small trusts real, and is there still any way to save a late Form 10A or Form 10AB?
  Registration under s.12AB(1)(a) and under s.12AB(1)(b)(ii)(A) runs five years; provisional registration under s.12AB(1)(c) runs three years from the assessment year for which registration is sought. The ten-year period is real but narrower than it is usually described: a proviso to s.12AB(1) inserted by the Finance Act 2025 (Act No. 7 of 2025) with effect from 1 April 2025 substitutes ten years for five where the application is under sub-clauses (i) to (v) of s.12A(1)(ac) and the total income of the trust, without giving effect to ss.11 and 12, did not exceed rupees five crores in each of the two previous years preceding the previous year in which the application is made — it does not lengthen the three-year provisional registration under clause (c). Separately, a proviso to s.12A(1)(ac) inserted by Act No. 15 of 2024 with effect from 1 October 2024 empowers the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner to condone a delay in filing where he considers there is a reasonable cause, and the application is then deemed to have been filed within time.

Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.