The Commissioner Of Income-Tax vs Gomedalli Lakshminarayan on 28 March, 1935 | Bombay High Court | Family Law

Equivalent citations: (1935) 37 BOMLR 692, 159 Ind Cas 424

Bench: J Beaumont, Kt., Rangnekar

Facts of the Case

1. There is a Hindu family consisting of father and his wife, son and his wife. However, father died in 1929 before the year of assessment, so the joint Hindu family then consisted of the son, his mother and his wife.

 2. Question raised by Commissioner appears to me to admit the existence of a joint Hindu family.

Legal Issues:

Whether, in the circumstances of the case, the income received by right of survivorship by the sole surviving male member of a Hindu undivided family can be taxed in the hands of such male member as his own individual income, or it should be taxed; as the income of a Hindu undivided family, for the purposes of assessment to super-tax, under section 55 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922?

Observations of Court and Judgement

Observations By Beamount, C.J

A Hindu undivided family is a unit for taxation under Sections 3 and 55, and under Section 14(1) it is provided that the tax shall not be payable by an assessee in respect of any sum which he receives as a member of a Hindu undivided family ; which seems to mean that as a Hindu undivided family is taxed as a unit, the individual members thereof are not liable to be charged in respect of what each member receives as his or her share of the joint income.

 Legislature while drafting Indian Income-tax Act was aware of expression " Hindu undivided family " includes females, and is much wider than the expression "coparcenary" which includes only the males in whom the joint family property is vested.

Contention: Advocate General argued that the Act, dealing as it does with property, when it refers to a Hindu undivided family, really means to denote the coparceners, that is to say, male members of the family in whom the family property is vested.

Reply by court: I see no ground for arriving at that conclusion, since the meaning of the two expressions was well-known when the Act was drafted, and the legislature has thought fit to use the wider expression rather than narrower one.

Observations by Rangnekar, J.

Under the Hindu law, an undivided Hindu family is composed of (a) males, and (6) females. The males are (1) those that are lineally connected in the male line, (2) collaterals, (3) relations by adoption, and (4) poor dependants. The female members are (1) the wife or the "widowed wife" of a male member, and (2) maiden daughters. The commentaries mention female-slaves and illegitimate sons also as being members of an undivided Hindu. family.

 Mayne in his work at p. 344 observes as follows: -

     "The whole body of such a family, consisting of males and females.... some of the members of         which are coparceners, that is, persons who on partition would be entitled to demand a share, while others are only entitled to maintenance."

A more accurate description of what a Hindu undivided family means is given by Sir Dinshah Mulla in his Principles of Hindu Law, 7th-. Edition., at p. 230, in these words: -

    "A joint Hindu family consists of all persons lineally descended from a common ?            Ancestor, and includes their wives and unmarried daughters. An undivided Hindu family in this sense differs from what is called a Hindu coparcenary, which is a much narrower body. A Hindu coparcenary  includes only those male members who take by birth an interest in the coparcenary property. This is what is known as apratibandha daya or unobstructed heritage, which devolves by survivorship. These are the three generations; next to the last holder in unbroken male descent."

Judgement was common from both judges i.e.

Beamount, C.J held that the income of the assessee should be taxed as the income of a Hindu undivided family for the purposes of super-tax under Section 55. And for the second question " Whether, under the circumstances of the case, the assessment as levied in this case is in order " must be answered in the negative.

 

-Summary by Tushar Bawa

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