Case: Rajasthan R.S.S. &amp; Ginning Mills Fed.Ltd Vs. Dy. Commnr. Of Income Tax, Jaipur

2. The facts giving rise to the present appeal in a nut-shell are as under:There were four co-operative societies in the State of Rajasthan wherein the Government of Rajasthan had substantial share holding, namely - (i) Rajasthan Co-operative Spinning Mills Ltd.; (ii) Gangapur Co-operative Spinning Mills Ltd.; (iii) Ganganagar Co-operative Spinning Mills Ltd.; and (iv) Gulabpura Cotton Ginning & Pressing Sahkari Samiti Ltd. An administrative decision was taken by the Government of Rajasthan to amalgamate all the aforestated co-operative societies into the appellant co-operative society, namely Rajasthan Rajya Sahkari Spinning & Ginning Mills Federation Ltd w.e.f. 01.01.1993.Upon amalgamation of the said societies into the appellant society, the registration of the said four co-operative societies had been cancelled and all the assets and liabilities of the said four societies had been taken over by the appellant society by virtue of the aforestated amalgamation. The aforestated four societies were not sound financially and they had substantial accumulative losses. After the amalgamation of the four co-operative societies into the appellant society, when Income-Tax returns for the assessment years 1994-95 and 1995-96 were filed by the appellant society, the appellant society wanted to get the accumulated losses of the aforestated societies, of about Rs.2,68,39,504/-, carried forward, so that the same could be set off against the profits of the appellant society under the provisions of Section 72 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ‘theassessing officer negatived theclaim for the reason that the said societies were not in existence after their amalgamation into the appellant society. As the said four societies were not in existence, according to the assessing officer, their accumulated losses could not have been carried forward or adjusted against the profits of the appellant society. Assessment orders were passed accordingly.3. Being aggrieved by the above stated assessment orders, appeals were filed before the CIT (Appeals) and the CIT (Appeals) dismissed the said appeals. Further appeals were filed before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal but the Tribunal also dismissed the appeals.4. Being aggrieved by the common order passed by the Tribunal, the appellant filed Income Tax Appeal No.19 of 2001 before the High Court of Rajasthan and the said Income Tax Appeal was also dismissed and therefore, the appellant has approached this Court by way of the present appeal.

Court's reasoning:
14. We had heard the learned counsel and had also perused records pertaining to the case and had also gone through the judgments referred to by them, and upon hearing them we are of the view that the judgment delivered by the High Court is absolutely just and proper.We are not in agreement with the submissions made by the learned counsel appearing for the appellant for the reason that for the purpose of getting carried forward losses adjusted or set off against the profits of subsequent years, there must be some provision in the Act. If there is no provision, the societies which are not in existence cannot get any benefit. The losses were suffered by the societies which were in existence at the relevant time and their existence or legal personality had come to an end upon being amalgamated into another society.17. The normal principle is that a non-existent person cannot file an income tax return and therefore, cannot carry forward its losses after its existence comes to an end. All those four societies, upon their amalgamation into the appellant society, had ceased to exist and registration of those societies had been cancelled. In the circumstances, those societies had no right under the provisions of the Act to file a return to get their earlier losses adjusted against the income of a different legal personality i.e. the appellant society.18. So far as companies are concerned, there is a specific provision in the Act that upon amalgamation of one company with another, losses of the amalgamating companies can be carried forward and the amalgamated company can get those losses set off against its profits subject to the provisions of the Act. This is permissible by virtue of Section 72 A of the Act but there is no such provision in the case of co-operative societies.19. It is pertinent to note that such a provision has been made only with regard to amalgamation of companies and later on similar provisions were made with regard to banks, etc., but at the relevant time there was no such provision which would permit the amalgamating co-operative society to carry forward and adjust such losses against the profits of the amalgamated co-operative society.20. The submission made by the learned counsel appearing for the appellant with regard to discrimination and violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India would also not help the appellant, as in our opinion, there is no discrimination. The societies and companies belong to different classes and simply because both have a distinct legal personality, it cannot be said that both must be given the same treatment.We agree with the view expressed by the High Court that as there is no provision under the Act for setting off accumulated losses of the amalgamating societies against the profits of the amalgamated society, the appellant society could not have got the benefit of carrying forward losses of the erstwhile societies which were not in existence during the relevant Assessment Year.We are also of the view that in all the tax matters one has to interpret taxation statute strictly. Simply because one class of legal entities are given some benefit which is specifically stated in the Act does not mean that the legal entities not referred to in the Act would also get the same benefit. As stated by this Court on several occasions, there is no equity in matters of taxation.