Charity is imbibed in every kind of religious faith so did the bench of the Tribunal in (2016] 47 ITR (Trib) 1 (ITAT[Amrit]) thwarted the attempt by the revenue to tax GOLAK DONATIONS under the garb of penal provisions for anonymous donation in section 115BBC. The bench went on to demonstrate that charity is imbibed in all the three religions, Hinduism , Sikhism and Islam and in this regard reproduced few scriptings from Zakaat from Islam, Dasvand from Sikhisim and the recognised concept from Manu-Smriti from the Hinduism. The Tribunal after their reading of few verses, orders, rehmatnamas etc . held that these three concepts continued to be accepted and practised in India all along down the ages for Manav Sewa, and, thus, it is firmly entrenched in our social system and cannot be questioned. Of the three, in Sikhism a great stress has been laid by all groups on sewa, i.e., service to mankind and have talked the followers to spend Dasvand for charitable purposes. Dasvand is one of the orders from the Seikh Gurus and is part of the Sikh religion. It literally means tenth part of the income should be given for religious purpose including to help the poor. This, in Punjabi, reads as under : ‘kirat karan jog sikhan layee kamai kami zaroori karar de ke gur mati ne angheen, beemar te lawaris birdhan da prabhadh kita hai te uh is tarah ke lodvandan di madad layi har kirat karan wale sikh nyu aapni kamayee vichon aamdan da daswan hisa dena faraz karar de ditta hai. Is lazmi bhaicharak bandhan (tax) da naam dasvand hai. Dasvand har sikh nu dena farz dasseya hai. Satguran ne amritdhari Sing layee taan khas taur te hidayat kiti hai.’
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