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“Hinduism” is not a religion & worship of Hindu Gods is not “religious purpose”


The assessee trust was set up with the object of “worship of Lord Shiva, Hanumanji, Goddess Durga and maintaining of temple” and “to celebrate festivals like Shivratri, Hanuman Jayanti, Ganesh Uttasav, Makar Sankranti”. It applied for a certificate under section 80G. S. 80G (5) provides that the trust should be established for a “charitable purpose”. Explanation 3 to s. 80G provides that “charitable purpose” does not include a purpose which is of a “religious nature”. S. 80G(5)(iii) also stipulates that the trust should not be expressed to be for the benefit of any particular religious community or caste. The CIT rejected the application on the ground that the assessee was set up for “religious” purposes. On appeal by the assessee to the Tribunal, HELD reversing the CIT:

The objects of the assessee is not for advancement, support or propagation of a particular religion. Worshipping Lord Shiva, Hanumanji, Goddess Durga and maintaining the temple is not advancement, support or propagation of a particular religion. Lord Shiva, Hanumanji & Goddess Durga do not represent any particular religion. They are merely regarded to be the super power of the universe. Further, there is no religion like “Hinduism”. The word “Hindu” is not defined in any of the texts nor in judge made law. The word was given by British administrators to inhabitants of India, who were not Christians, Muslims, Parsis or Jews. Hinduism is a way of life. It consists of a number of communities having different gods who are being worshipped in a different manner, different rituals, different ethical codes. The worship of god is not essential for a person who has adopted Hinduism way of life. Therefore, expenses incurred for worshipping of Lord Shiva, Hanuman, Goddess Durga and for maintenance of temple cannot be regarded to be for religious purpose (Commissioner of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments vs. Sri Lakshmindra Thirtha Swamiar 1954 SCJ 335 & T. T. Kuppuswamy Chettiar Vs. State of Tamil Nadu (1987) 100 LW 1031 followed).

In an earlier judgment CWT vs. Shridharan 104 ITR 436 (SC) of the Supreme Court the concept of Hindusim has been legally explained.

The facts of that case were....

The late  R. Sridharan married Rosa Maria Steinbichler, a christian  Austrian of descent, under the Special Marriage Act, 1954  and a  son Nicolas  Sundaram was  born out of the wedlock. In  the assessment  proceedings i respect of income tax, wealth tax and expenditure tax, Sridharan claimed to be assessed in the status of a member of Hindu Undivided Family consisting of  himself and  his son,  contending  that the property held  by him was ancestral and Nicolas Sundaram was a Hindu. The late  R. Sridharan married Rosa Maria Steinbichler, a christian  Austrian of descent, under the Special Marriage Act, 1954  and a  son Nicolas  Sundaram was  born out of the wedlock. In  the assessment  proceedings i respect of income tax, wealth tax and expenditure tax, Sridharan claimed to be assessed in the status of a member of Hindu Undivided Family consisting of  himself and  his son,  contending  tha the property held  by him was ancestral and Nicolas Sundaram was a Hindu. officers dealing with these taxes rejected the contention and assessed him  as an individual on the ground that succession to the property of  a person married under the Special  Marriage Act, 1954, is  governed by the Indian Succession Act, 1925 and  not by ordinary Hindu Law and Nicolas Sundaram  could  not become a member of Hindu Undivided Family With his father. these orders were affirmed by the Appellate Assistant Commission in the Appellate Tribunal in  appeals by Sridharan against the assessments..
On further  applications made  by Sridharan,  the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal  referred the  matter to  the High  Court which  decided in  favour of Sridharan but granted a certificate of fitness. Meanwhile, Sridharan died, and his widow filed  wealth tax returns, claiming  the status of a member of  Hindu Undivided  Family. The Revenue authorities followed their earlier decisions, and ultimately the matter was referred to the High Court  which decided in  favour of respondent Mrs. Sridharan, but granted Leave to appeal to this Court.


Dismissing the appeals, the Court, held - 


The  sole question  which,  however,  falls  for our consideration in  these appeals is whether Nicolas Sundaram is a  Hindu governed  by Hindu law. It is a matter of common knowledge that Hinduism  embraces  within  itself so many diverse forms of beliefs, faiths, practices and worship that it is difficult to define the term 'Hindu' with precision.
The historical  and etymological  genesis of  the word "Hindu" has been succinctly explained  by Gajendragadkar, C.J. in Shastri Yagnapurushdasji & ors. v. Muldas Bhundardas Vaishya & Anr.(l).

In  Unabridged Edition of  Webster's Third New International Dictionary  of the  English language, the term 'Hinduism' has been defined  as meaning  "a complex body of social, cultural,   and  religious  beliefs  and  practices evolved in  and largely confined to the Indian subcontinent and marked by a caste system, an outlook tending to view all forms and  theories as aspects of  one eternal being and truth, a  belief in  ahimsa,  karma,  dharma,  sansara, and moksha, and  the practice  of the  way of  works, the way of knowledge, or  the way of devotion  as the means of release from the  bound of  rebirths; the  way of life and form of thought of a Hindu".

In Encyclopaedia  Britannica (15th Edition), the term 'Hinduism' has been defined as meaning "the civilization of Hindus (originally, the inhabitants of the land of the Indus River). It properly denotes  the  Indian  civilization  of approximately the last 2,000 years, which gradually evolved  from Vedism, the religion of the ancient Indo-European peoples who settled  in India in the last centuries of  the 2nd millennium BC. Because it integrates a large variety of heterogeneous elements, Hinduism constitutes a very complex but largely continuous whole, and since it covers the whole of life, it has religious, social, economic, literary, and artistic  aspects. As a  religion, Hinduism is  an utterly diverse conglomerate  of doctrines, cults, and way of life  ....  In principle,  Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any. The Hindu is inclined  to revere the divine in every manifestation, whatever it  may be,  and is  doctrinally tolerant, leaving others-including both Hindus and non-Hindus-whatever creed and worship  practices suit them best. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu, and since the Hindu  is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other  forms of  worship, strange  gods,  and  divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for  the well-being  of the world and mankind. Few religious ideas  are considered  to be finally irreconcilable. The core of religion does not even depend on the existence or non-existence of God or on whether there is one god or many. Since religious truth is said to transcend all verbal definition it is not conceived in dogmatic terms. Hinduism is, then both a civilization and a conglomerate of religions, with neither a beginning, a founder, nor a central authority, hierarchy, or organization. Every attempt at a specific definition of Hinduism has proved unsatisfactory in one way or another, the more so because the finest  Indian scholars of Hinduism, including Hindus themselves, have emphasized different aspects of the whole".



The court stated that under the codifying Acts namely the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the Hindu Minority and Guardian  ship Act,  1956   and  the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act,  1956, the  orthodox concept  of  the term 'Hindu' has undergone a radical change and it has been given an extended  meaning. The  aforesaid codifying Acts not only apply to  Hindus by  birth or  religion i.e.  to converts to Hinduism but  also to  a  large number of  other  persons. According to  explanation (b)  to section  2(1) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, Hindu  Adoption and  Maintenance Act, 1956 and  Hindu Marriage  Act, 1955  as also  according  to explanation (ii)  to section  3(1) of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship   Act,    1956,   any   child   legitimate or illegitimate, one  of whose  parents is a Hindu by religion and who is brought up as a Hindu is a Hindu.

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