Civil Application No. 169 of 1934. Case: Vadilal Lallubhai Mehta Vs Commissioner of Income-tax. High Court of Bombay (India)
| Case Number | Civil Application No. 169 of 1934 |
| Judges | John Beaumont, Kt., C.J. and Rangnekar, J. |
| Issue | Income Tax Act |
| Citation | AIR 1935 Bom 170, 1935 (37) BomLR 89 |
| Judgement Date | September 11, 1934 |
| Court | High Court of Bombay (India) |
Judgment:
John Beaumont, Kt., C.J.
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This is an application made to the Court under Sub-section (3) of Section 66 of the Indian Income Tax Act asking the Court to require the Commissioner to state a case and raise certain points of law. In substance the points of law are said to arise in this way. The assessee was assessed as an individual for the year 1932-33 in respect of his income for the previous year. He alleges that in May 1932 a son was born to him, and he says that having regard to the construction of two documents, the business in respect of which he was assessed was, as between himself and his son, a Hindu joint-family business. His contention is that the effect of the two documents is to show that he acquired his share in the business from his own father by a surrender of his interest in certain ancestral Immovable property, and that in that way his interest in this business is the interest of a joint Hindu family. The Income Tax Officer in the first instance, and the Assistant Commissioner on appeal, rejected the claim of the assessee, as I understand it, mainly on the ground that they considered these two documents illusory, and that no Hindu joint family existed. That, no doubt, is a question of fact, and the only point of law Which would arise in connection with that finding would be whether there was any evidence to justify the finding. Within sixty days after the decision of the Assistant Commissioner an application was made by the assessee to the Commissioner under Sub-section (2) of Section 66, requiring him to state certain questions of law, and as not infrequently happens, when these applications are made by laymen, the questions of law formulated had not been carefully considered, and were, frankly, unintelligible. The learned Commissioner took the view that no question of law arose, the question at issue being one of fact, and therefore, he refused to state a case. The assessee then made an application under Sub-section (5) of Section 66 asking us to require the Commissioner to state a case. Now the view taken by this Court more than once, and confirmed in the recent decision of Narayan v. The Commissioner of Income Tax, Bombay (1934)36BOMLR818, is that we have power under Sub-section (3) of Section 66, to direct the Commissioner to state a case raising questions of law which have not been formulated before him. The learned Advocate General has drawn our attention to the fact that that view has not prevailed in...
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