Residential status turns on day-count computation; late-night arrival excluded, leading to non-resident status and no tax on foreign income.

For determining residential status, the Tribunal applied the ordinary rule of computation of time under the General Clauses Act and excluded the day of arrival in India when the assessee reached late at night and had no usable part of the day left. On that basis, the assessee could not be treated as resident for the relevant year and was regarded as non-resident. As a result, income earned in Iran was not includible in the Indian assessment. The separate question of ordinarily resident status was treated as academic once non-resident status was found.

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Issues: Whether, for determining the assessee's residential status, the date of arrival in India late at night was to be excluded while counting the days of stay, and consequently whether the income earned in Iran was includible in the total income.

Analysis: The count of days of stay was held to be governed by the ordinary rule of computation recognised in the General Clauses Act, under which the first day is excluded where time has to be reckoned by days. Since the assessee arrived in India only at 10.30 p.m. and had practically no usable part of the day left, that date was excluded from the computation. On that basis, the assessee could not be treated as resident for the relevant year. Once the status was held to be that of a non-resident, the income earned in Iran could not be brought to tax in India. The separate contention regarding ordinarily resident status was treated as academic in view of the finding on non-resident status.

Conclusion: The arrival date was excluded from the computation of stay in India, the assessee was treated as a non-resident, and the foreign income from Iran was not includible in the assessment.

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