Determinate beneficiary shares under a trust deed required assessment under section 160(1), not section 164(1) of the Income-tax Act.

A trust deed previously construed by the court was treated as creating determinate and known shares for the three beneficiaries, and that construction was followed here. Because the beneficiaries' interests were ascertainable, assessment had to be made under section 160(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and section 164(1), including Explanation 1 deeming shares unknown, did not apply. The same reasoning that governed the earlier wealth-tax reference was applied to these assessments, and no referable question of law arose.

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Issues: Whether, on a proper construction of the trust deed, the beneficiaries' shares were determinate and known so that assessment had to be made under section 160(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, or indeterminate or unknown so as to attract section 164(1), including Explanation 1 thereto.

Analysis: The trust deed had already been construed in an earlier reference arising out of the same deed, where the shares of the three beneficiaries were held to be known and determinate. That construction was applied here as well. Once the beneficiaries' shares were found to be determinate, the trust could not be assessed under section 164(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and the Explanation deeming shares to be unknown had no application. The same reasoning that governed the earlier wealth-tax reference also governed these cases.

Conclusion: The trust was assessable under section 160(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and not under section 164(1), and no referable question of law arose.

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