Joint family property remains exempt where a sole surviving coparcener holds estate subject to Hindu undivided family rights.

Property held by a sole surviving coparcener was treated as continuing joint family property where the Hindu undivided family itself still subsisted and remained capable of expansion by adoption. The temporary reduction of the coparcenary to one male member did not, by itself, change the character of the estate, because the owner's rights remained qualified by the incidents and potential rights of the family, including the possibility of a later adopted son. On that footing, the property fell within the statutory exemption for joint property of a Hindu undivided family under section 73 of the Estate Duty Ordinance, 1938, and estate duty could not be sustained.

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Issues: Whether property held by a sole surviving coparcener of a Hindu undivided family continued to be "joint property of that Hindu undivided family" so as to qualify for exemption from estate duty under section 73 of the Estate Duty Ordinance, 1938.

Analysis: Section 73 exempted from estate duty property proved to the satisfaction of the Commissioner to be the joint property of a Hindu undivided family. The relevant inquiry was whether the temporary reduction of the coparcenary to one male member altered the character of the property while the Hindu undivided family itself continued to subsist, particularly where the family remained capable of expansion by adoption and the female members retained their incidents of membership. The property of a surviving coparcener was treated as continuing joint family property because his powers of ownership remained qualified by the rights of the family and by the possibility of a later adopted son altering the legal quality of the estate.

Conclusion: The property retained its character as joint property of the Hindu undivided family, and the exemption under section 73 applied; the assessment to estate duty could not be upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: So long as a Hindu undivided family continues to subsist and the property remains subject to the rights and potential incidents of that family, property in the hands of a sole surviving coparcener is still joint family property for the purposes of statutory exemption.

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