Adoption severs natural family ties, preventing agricultural income from settled lands being assessed in the natural parent's hands.

Where a daughter had been validly given in adoption to the petitioner's sister, the adoption severed her legal ties with the natural family and deemed her the child of the adoptive parents from the date of adoption. On that basis, the agricultural income from lands settled on her could not be assessed in the petitioner's hands as if it were income from his minor child's property. The inclusion of that income in the petitioner's total agricultural income was therefore not sustainable in law.

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Issues: Whether the agricultural income from lands settled by the petitioner on his daughter, who had been given in adoption to the petitioner's sister, could be included in the petitioner's total agricultural income for assessment purposes.

Analysis: The validity of the adoption was not disputed. On adoption, the child is deemed to be the child of the adoptive parents for all purposes from the date of adoption, and the ties with the family of birth stand severed. Once the daughter ceased to be treated in law as the petitioner's child, there was no basis to assess the income from the settled lands in the hands of the petitioner as though it were income from the property of his minor child.

Conclusion: The inclusion of the agricultural income from the settled lands in the petitioner's total agricultural income was not sustainable in law and the challenge succeeded.

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