Double taxation relief is limited to the same or continuing business, not later independent undertakings.

Schedule 5(4) relief against double taxation was confined to the same business, or a business that had grown out of the one previously taxed under the 1918 Act. The court applied the commercial inseparability test and held that whether two concerns formed one business depended on facts showing they were interlocked or dovetailed. On the facts, the grain business earlier taxed was separate from the later salt-manufacturing and cardboard undertakings, which were independent and not shown to have existed in 1918 or to have arisen from the earlier business. Relief was therefore unavailable for the later businesses and the assessee's claim failed.

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Issues: Whether relief under Schedule 5(4) of the Income-tax Act, 1939 was available only in respect of the business or activities that had been in existence and taxed under the Indian Income-tax Act, 1918, or whether it extended to later-created and independent businesses of the assessee.

Analysis: The relief provision was treated as a remedial rule intended to prevent double taxation on the same income. On a proper construction, it applied only where the business now assessed was the same business, or had grown out of, the business on which tax had earlier been charged under the 1918 Act. Whether two concerns formed one business depended on the facts, and the governing test was whether the businesses were so interlocked or dovetailed that they were commercially inseparable. Applying that test, the grain business taxed in 1918 was found to be separate from the later salt-manufacturing and cardboard businesses, which were independent undertakings and not shown to have existed in 1918 or to have arisen from the earlier business.

Conclusion: Relief under Schedule 5(4) was not available for the later businesses, and the assessee's claim failed. The reference was refused.

Final Conclusion: The decision affirms that the statutory relief against double taxation is confined to the same business or an identifiable continuation of the business previously taxed, and does not extend to independent businesses started later.

Ratio Decidendi: A successor can claim relief from double taxation only if the later activity is the same business, or a continuation of, the business previously taxed; separate and independent businesses do not qualify.

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