Inherited property income assessed as individual income where no HUF existed and co-owners held as tenants-in-common.

Income from inherited property was assessable in the hands of the assessee as an individual, not as an HUF, because the father's property devolved on the widow and son as tenants-in-common rather than as joint tenants. The widow held only a limited estate with a right to claim partition, and there was no prior history of HUF ownership. The property's ancestral character in the son's hands did not, by itself, make the income HUF income before the birth of a son or existence of another coparcener.

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Issues: Whether the income from the property inherited by the assessee was assessable in the status of an HUF or in the status of an individual for the relevant assessment years.

Analysis: The property left by the assessee's father devolved on the widow and the son, and the widow was entitled only to a limited estate with a right to claim partition under the Hindu Women's Right to Property Act, 1937. On the facts, the widow and son did not hold the property as joint tenants with survivorship but as tenants-in-common. There was no past history of the property being owned by an HUF, and the assessee had no other coparcener during the relevant period. The fact that the property was ancestral in the son's hands did not by itself make the income assessable as HUF income before the birth of a son.

Conclusion: The income from the property was rightly assessed in the status of an individual and not as an HUF.

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