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18. The effect of this understanding of the statutory definition of "charitable purposes" under the Act is that there must always be an enquiry whether any given object of general public utility does or does not involve the carrying on of any activity for profit. Because, upon that enquiry will depend the ultimate determination whether the purpose is or is not charitable. Basing himself upon this aspect of the definition of the expression "charitable purpose", learned counsel for the Revenue submitted that the mere repetition of the statutory phrase and the mere description of the object of a given trust as a charitable object cannot meet with the requirements of the statutory definition. He pointed out that the trust deed in this case did not even indicate what major heads of charitable purposes are avowed by the founder in the deed in question. Merely stating that the trust is established for a charitable purpose might not by itself indicate whether the intention is either relief of the poor or education or medical relief or any other object of general public utility. Learned counsel proceeded to submit that particularising the charitable objects at least under major heads is essential as a minimal requirement of the statutory definition. The reasons urged by the learned counsel for the Revenue was that if there is no particularisation of the charitable object at least into one or the other of the main heads set out in the statutory definition, it could be difficult to understand whether any of the purposes to which the income is applied is or is not charitable. In this sense, learned counsel submitted that not only a court of construction, but even the trustee would be at a loss to know beforehand, that is to say, before they apply the income of the trust, to find out what are the really charitable purposes for which the trust exists. Learned counsel said that it was necessary to specify whether the expression "charitable purpose" was employed in the trust instrument, to include the residuary head of general public utility, for, as mentioned earlier, according to the decision of the Supreme Court, such an object should not have any activity for profit. Therefore, merely stating that the purpose of the trust is a charitable purpose cannot per se give any indication that it does not thereby exclude an object involving the carrying on of any activity for profit. An enquiry will have to be made in every case to ascertain this point about the trust, not on a study or interpretation of the trust deed but only by going into the actual application of the income after it has been earned and applied. What is required under the statutory definition is that nature of a particular trust has got to be determined by reference to its objects and not by reference to the actual application of the income if and when an income is earned and if and when the income is applied. By not defining the purpose, he said, this mode of examining the nature of the trust is denied.

19. It seems to us that Mr. Jayaraman's criticism of the objects clause in this trust deed is well founded. We must remember that this trust deed was drafted and executed in the year 1958. When the founder used the expression "charitable purposes", we might assume that either she used this expression in a general sense, or she used it in the sense in which the taxation law understood that expression. We have already referred to the definition of the expression "charitable purpose" in the Indian I.T. Act, 1922, in which charitable purpose was defined to include "any other object of general public utility", and it was not concerned whether the object of general public utility did or did not involve any activity for profit. It is reasonable to hold, as a matter of construction, that when the founder used the expression "charitable purpose" in the deed she meant to include not only the relief of the poor, education, medical relief, but also advancement of any other object of general public utility in which no element of profit was at all excluded. We were informed at the hearing that the founder herself had occasion to execute supplemental deeds, but nothing was stated in the supplemental deeds to clarify that charitable purpose as avowed in the original trust deed did not exclude any activity for private profit. We must, therefore, proceed on the footing that the expression charitable purposes as employed in the trust deed had at least the generally accepted meaning which was attributed to it in law which was prevalent at that time. Moreover, if we grant that by the use of the expression "charitable purpose" the founder intended to include within its fold not only the three named heads of charity, namely, relief of the poor, education and medical relief, but also the residuary object of general public utility, then, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the expression is out and out charitable, the court will have to make an enquiry outside of the trust deed, going beyond the construction of the terms of the trust of the trust deed. The court will have to go into the facts and find out from any given factual situation relating to the activities of the trust and to its earning and application of income in any given year to see, for itself, if the pursuit of the object of general public utility does or does not involve the carrying on of any activity for profit which would be destructive of the very charitable purpose. It is but a step in the further reasoning on these lines to refer to the provision in the trust deed which gives a complete discretion to the trustee to utilise the income for any one or some or all of the purposes of the trust. Indeed, a careful reading of the trust deed will show that there is no clear provision as to the application of the income. The inference is that application is to be at the entire discretion of the trustee or trustees for the time being. In such a situation, when the trustee has the discretion to use the trust income for any of the charitable objects, and such charitable objects must perforce be construed to include all the four heads of charity mentioned in the statutory definition, that would necessarily involve an enquiry into finding out whether any of the objects, namely, relief of the poor, education, medical relief or the advancement of any other object of general public utility involves any activity for profit.

21. We also accept the initial submission made by the learned counsel for the Revenue that since the crux of the statutory exemption is not the income earned being derived from the property held under trust, for, in view of a charitable object, but the actual application, or the accumulation or setting apart of the income for application, for a charitable purpose, the objects in any given trust deed will have to be construed not in an abstract sense but with reference to the capability or amenability of that charitable object to be put into operation for the purpose of enabling the earning of the income to meet the object. In this view the necessity for and the importance of particularising the objects at least into their major heads cannot be gainsaid. It is in this respect that this trust deed finally fails. We are satisfied that on a proper construction of this trust deed the objects avowed by the founder do not meet the requirements of the statutory definition of the expression "charitable purpose" and they do not certainly fulfill the conditions required for exemption under s. 11 of the Act.

29. Likewise, the emphasis placed in the discussion of this case before the Tribunal and the I.T. authorities on the running of the printing press by the trust is also a misplaced discussion. The point of view urged on behalf of the Department before the Tribunal was that the running of a printing press was an activity which involved the earning of private profit. This may be true. But, if the running of a printing press as a business proposition is not one of the avowed objects of the trust, then the fact that such a business was actually run by the trustees for the purpose of earning income for the trust cannot have any relevance to the discussion, that is to say, to the discussion concerning objects. What parliament to convey when it excluded a purpose involving any activity for profit from the residuary head of charity was not that a charity should not carry on any business at all. Parliament's intention, as the Supreme Court pointed out in Addl. CIT v. Surat Art Silk Cloth Manufacturers Association [1980] 121 ITR 1 was that an activity for carrying on private profit must not itself figure as one of the primary objects of the trust and if it does, the trust will not be eligible for exemption under the I.T. Act. In the present case, the objects of the trust, as set out in the document executed by Ganga Bai, do not anywhere state that a printing press or any other business should be run as one of the objects of the trust. The fact that a printing press was carried on only shows that it was one of the means adopted by the trustees to augment the income of the trust. The I.T. authorities had obviously confused the means with the ends. What the law requires is that a trust should not have any object of general public utility which involves, as an object, the carrying on of any activity for profit. The law does not frown against any activity for profit being carried on by a charitable trust as a means of furthering its objects, the objects themselves being indubitably charitable in nature.