Representative assessment of trust income applies where trustees receive income for identified beneficiaries with determinate shares.

Section 41 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 applied to trustees appointed under a duly executed trust deed who received income on behalf of identified beneficiaries. The provision was treated as creating a representative assessment mechanism, with levy and recovery made in the same manner and to the same extent as from the beneficiaries. The earlier U.P. Agricultural Income-tax Act ruling was distinguished because its language and scheme differed materially. Where the beneficiaries' shares are determinate, the assessment must be made separately for each beneficiary. The trust income was therefore not assessable in the trustee's individual hands under section 10(1).

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Issues: Whether the income from the trust business was assessable in the hands of the trustee as an individual under section 10(1) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, or whether section 41 applied so that the assessment had to be made on the trustee in a representative capacity for the beneficiaries.

Analysis: Section 41 specifically covered trustees appointed under a duly executed trust deed who were entitled to receive income on behalf of beneficiaries. The earlier Supreme Court decision on the U.P. Agricultural Income-tax Act was distinguished because the language and scheme of that provision differed materially from section 41 of the Income-tax Act, which expressly included trustees and provided for levy and recovery in the same manner and to the same amount as from the beneficiaries. The later Supreme Court authorities were treated as supporting the view that section 41 authorises a representative assessment where the trustee receives income on behalf of identified beneficiaries, and where the beneficiaries' shares are determinate the assessment must be made separately in respect of each beneficiary.

Conclusion: Section 41 applied, and the income was not assessable under section 10(1) in the trustee's individual hands. The assessment had to be made separately in respect of the persons on whose behalf the income was received.

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