T. Vaiphey, J.

1. The inaction of the Income-Tax Authorities in not processing the returns of income-tax for the assessment years 1995-1996 to 1998-1999 on the ground of delay in filing those returns by the petitioner-Trust thereby denying refund of TDS amount of Rs. 8,93,773/- deducted by the concerned financial institutions, is the grievance in this writ petition. The petitioner is a trust constituted by the registered Deed of Trust dated 20.2.1993, which was recognized under the Income-Tax Act, 1961 ("the Act" for short), and is having its' registered office at Brook land compound, Lower New Colony, Shillong. It is the case of the petitioner-Trust that after its recognition by the Income-Tax authorities, any income received by it on behalf of a recognized provident fund is an income, which do not form a part of the total income and is, therefore, exempted from payment of income-tax under Section 10(25)(ii) of the Act During the said assessment years of 1995-1996 to 1998-1999, the funds of the petitioner-Trust were invested as per the instructions of the Government of India in various financial institutions by yielding an income for the trust fund: these financial institutions deducted the income-tax at source from the incomes earned from such fixed deposits. In the assessment year 1995-1996, the amount so deducted was Rs. 52,003/-, Rs. 3,22,141/- for the assessment year 1996-1997, Rs. 2,78,475/- for the assessment year 1997-1998 and Rs. 2,41,154/-for the assessment year 1998-1999. According to the petitioner-Trust, as all the income generated by it is for and on behalf of a recognized Provident Fund, the total income, which becomes assessable under the Act during the relevant year but did not exceed the maximum amount, is not chargeable to income-tax. Consequently, it was not required to submit or file any return of income-tax as required under Section 139of the Act. However, in order to claim refund of the said TDS erroneously deducted by the financial institutions and paid to the Income-Tax authorities, the petitioner-Trust filed the returns for those assessment years before the respondent No. 2.

2. It is the further case of the petitioner-Trust that the respondent No. 2 (the Assessing Officer) passed the order dated 22-9-2000 to the effect that since the return of income-tax for those assessment years had been filed beyond the time-limit, they were treated as invalid returns and rejected the application for the TDS refunds. This prompted the petitioner-Trust to prefer Appeal No. SHILL-64/2000-01 on 21-12-2000, but the same was dismissed by the respondent No. 3 on 25-3-2004 as incompetent and without jurisdiction and advised it to avail of other remedies such as filing an application under Section 119 of the Act. The petitioner-Trust accordingly filed four separate petitions before the Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax, Shillong (COIT) under Section 119(2) of the Act on 21-5-2004, which was received on 25-5-2004, for refund of the TDS. The Income-Tax Officer (Tech.) from the Office of the CIT by his letter dated 9-3-2006 intimated the petitioner-Trust to the effect that "for judicious exercise of direction provided under Section119(2)(b), it is necessary that a comprehensive note is submitted by the petitioner to establish on record that it was prevented by reasonable cause from complying with provisions of Section 139 in so far as filing of return of income within the statutory time limit is concerned". In response to the aforesaid letter, the petitioner-Trust vide the letter dated 24.5.2006 submitted a detailed comprehensive note by explaining that the delay in filing the returns to the Office of the CCIT, Shillong was caused by the bifurcation of NEEPCO into NEEPCO and Power Grid Corporation with consequential bifurcation of the fund transferred by EPFO into cash and securities, stabilization - of computerized system, delay in audit of the account, non-issue of IT exemption Certificate under Section 10(25) by the