Accountable person's right to appeal under Estate Duty law survives, even when assessment documents are not supplied.

A person who is an accountable person and has an interest in the deceased's estate may invoke the appeal remedy under section 62 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953, because the statutory right is available to challenge the assessment notwithstanding that another accountable person may have filed the return earlier. Non-furnishing of the assessment order and demand notice cannot be used to defeat that appeal or render it incompetent where the appellant had sought those documents and was not supplied with them. The stated position thus confirms locus to appeal and protects the statutory remedy from being nullified by withheld assessment records.

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Issues: (i) whether a son of the deceased, being an accountable person and having an interest in the estate, was entitled to prefer an appeal under section 62 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953 against the assessment order; (ii) whether an appeal filed without a certified copy of the assessment order or demand notice was properly maintainable when those documents had not been furnished to the appellant.

Issue (i): whether a son of the deceased, being an accountable person and having an interest in the estate, was entitled to prefer an appeal under section 62 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953 against the assessment order.

Analysis: Section 53(1)(a) of the Estate Duty Act, 1953 treats every legal representative to whom the property of the deceased passes as accountable for the estate duty. Section 62 confers a right of appeal on a person objecting to the specified matters in an assessment order. A person having an interest in the estate is therefore within the class entitled to challenge the assessment, and that right is not taken away merely because another accountable person had filed the return earlier.

Conclusion: The right of appeal existed and the objection to the appellant's competence was rejected, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): whether an appeal filed without a certified copy of the assessment order or demand notice was properly maintainable when those documents had not been furnished to the appellant.

Analysis: The record showed that the appellant had sought copies of the assessment order and demand notice and had not been supplied with them. Denial of those documents could not be used to defeat the statutory right of appeal or to treat the appeal as incompetent for want of annexure of the very documents withheld by the department.

Conclusion: The appeal was properly filed and the objection to maintainability failed, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered against the Revenue on both questions, affirming the assessee's entitlement to appeal and the validity of the appeal already filed.

Ratio Decidendi: A person who is an accountable person and has an interest in the estate has locus to appeal under section 62 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953, and the right of appeal cannot be defeated by the department's failure to furnish the assessment order and demand notice.

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