IT department is to cancel Ramdev's charitable status

The Income-Tax department is set to cancel the registration of yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s trust as a charitable organisation and withdraw all exemptions provided to it.

A final order  has been passed on August 24 by the Income-Tax (exemption) unit in the case of  Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust, for the year 2009-10, after a scrutiny revealed that it was involved in several commercial and trading activities

While the trust has so far enjoyed exemption under Section 12 (a) of the Income-Tax Act having declared its income as “nil”, sources said a scrutiny of its accounts and activities pegged its taxable income at Rs 72.37 crore.




The I-T exemption unit sought clarifications in the form of around 100 questions from trust officials before issuing the order, and the department is now in the process of despatching final penalty notices and cancellation of registration orders.

The summary of the I-T Department’s order is that while enjoying exemption, the Patanjali Trust showed revenue expenditure of Rs 8.71 crore against its gross income of Rs 74.74 crore.

This works out to an expenditure of 12 per cent and a surplus of Rs 66.03 crore.

Exemption is provided to a trust provided 85 per cent of its income is spent on charitable purposes.

Major findings of the probe that found violations of the Income Tax Act and thereby withdrew exemptions are:  *The Patanjali trust declared Rs 88.73 lakh as part of its corpus under the Vanprastha Ashram scheme and sold cottages for between Rs 5.5 lakh and Rs 21 lakh each.

*It received tracts of land as “donation” in Gurgaon. The precise location and value of the land are still being investigated.

*The trust received Rs 38.35 crore as “donation” from its affiliate organisation in Hardwar, the Divya Yog Mandir Trust. This has now been disallowed.

*A sum of Rs 14.75 crore was received as “membership fees” in the year that was under scrutiny for various schemes. One could pay Rs 21,000 for a “respected membership” to Rs 11 lakh each for a “corporate membership”.

*A sum of Rs 15.41 crore was received by the trust for holding yoga camps where those attending purchased coupons of different classes —- a ‘VIP’ coupon for Rs 2,100 and a diamond coupon for Rs 1,100.

*The trust was found to have received Rs 13.69 crore as “anonymous donation” while admitting only to such donations totalling Rs 1.07 crore.

*Serious discrepancies detected in the manner in which the Patanjali trust launched its disaster relief funds.

Anna Hazaare speaks in double tie-ups with Baba Ramdev

Amid reports of a growing unease within his team over his tie-up with Baba Ramdev for a joint rally, veteran activist Anna Hazare today dismissed all talks of a rift over the issue.

But, in a curious doublespeak of sorts, the 74-year-old Gandhian first said that he would not be touring the country with the yoga guru, only to follow it up by saying that he did not rule out sharing a stage with Mr Ramdev at a later stage.

"There is no gap in the one-and-a-half-month tour that I am going on. I told you before that we are not going to be roaming together.



But we are fighting for the same purpose of getting back black money and the Lokpal and the Lokayukta bills.

We shall stand together and there is no change on that. After my Maharashtra trip, when we go together, it is possible that we will be on the stage together," Mr Hazare said.

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Anna, Ramdev to hold joint fast against corruption

Anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare and yoga guru Baba Ramdev will jointly sit on a day's token fast in Delhi June 3 to press for a strong Lokpal Bill and to mobilise opinion against black money.

Addressing a joint press conference here, Hazare and Ramdev slammed the government for being involved in corruption.Hazare said they had no intention of making the government fall.



However, there was nothing wrong if the people's movement proceeded that way.

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