Agricultural income from rubber slaughter tapping taxed where tribunal findings on estate operations and possession were not open to challenge.

Factual findings of the Tribunal in a reference cannot be reopened unless their perversity, arbitrariness or lack of evidentiary support is specifically challenged. On the Tribunal's findings that the assessee carried out agricultural operations on the rubber estate, including weeding, clearing undergrowth, road laying, erection of smoke houses and curing, and was in possession and holding of the estate, the income from slaughter tapping was treated as agricultural income taxable under the Kerala Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950. Those same findings also brought the assessee within the definition of a person liable to tax under section 2(m).

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Issues: Whether income from slaughter tapping of rubber trees during the relevant year was agricultural income taxable under the Kerala Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950, and whether the assessee fell within the definition of a person liable to be taxed under section 2(m).

Analysis: The Tribunal had found that the assessee carried out acts such as weeding, clearing undergrowth, laying roads, erecting smoke houses and curing rubber, and had also held that the assessee was in possession of and holding the estate. In reference, the Court declined to reassess those factual findings in the absence of a specific question challenging them as arbitrary, perverse or unsupported by evidence. On the basis of the Tribunal's findings, the principle relied on by the assessee was held to be inapplicable.

Conclusion: The income from slaughter tapping was held to be taxable agricultural income, and the assessee was held liable to tax as a person within section 2(m).

Ratio Decidendi: In a reference, factual findings of the Tribunal cannot be reopened unless their perversity or arbitrariness is specifically put in issue; where those findings establish agricultural operations and holding of property, the income is taxable under the Act.

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