Domicile turns on settled intention and surrounding conduct, keeping foreign domicile alive where no final move to India is shown.

Domicile for estate duty purposes depends on a settled intention to make a permanent home, assessed from the totality of conduct and surrounding circumstances rather than a bare statement of intention. The court treated the deceased's letters to the Reserve Bank of India seeking reconversion of foreign exchange, together with his efforts to obtain employment in the USA, as evidence that he had not finally decided to settle in India. On that material, the earlier view that he had acquired an Indian domicile could not stand, and the deceased was held to have remained domiciled in America, excluding the foreign movable property from Indian estate duty exposure.

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Issues: Whether the deceased was domiciled in India at the time of death so as to render movable property situated outside India includible in the estate under the Estate Duty Act.

Analysis: Domicile turns on intention, and intention must be gathered from the totality of a person's conduct and surrounding circumstances rather than from a bare assertion. The relevant inquiry was whether the deceased, after returning to India, had finally decided to settle there or whether his conduct showed that he remained inclined to return to the USA. The letters written by the deceased to the Reserve Bank of India seeking reconversion of foreign exchange, coupled with his efforts to seek employment in the USA, were treated as significant indicators of a continuing intention not to permanently settle in India. On that material, the earlier conclusion that he had acquired an Indian domicile could not be sustained.

Conclusion: The deceased was not domiciled in India at the time of death and continued to be domiciled in America; the question was answered in the negative and in favour of the accountable person.

Ratio Decidendi: Domicile is determined by overall conduct and surrounding circumstances showing a settled intention as to permanent home, and where the evidence shows no final decision to settle in India, a foreign domicile continues.

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