Ancestral property under a will may remain HUF property, making its income assessable in HUF status.

Properties inherited under a father's will were treated as ancestral/coparcenary assets where the will dealt with joint family property and the recipient was already a coparcener. On that footing, the income from those assets was assessable in the status of a Hindu undivided family, not as the individual income of the assessee. The discussion also noted divergence in judicial opinion under the Hindu Succession Act on testamentary disposition of such property, and relied on surrounding facts including the department's later acceptance of HUF status for the same assets.

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Issues: Whether the properties inherited by the assessee under the will of his father, being ancestral/coparcenary in character, could be treated as the income of the Hindu undivided family rather than as the assessee's individual property.

Analysis: The will dealt with ancestral properties which had come to the assessee as property of the joint family in which he was a coparcener. The reasoning proceeded on the footing that, even under the Hindu Succession Act, there was divergence of judicial opinion on testamentary disposition of such property, and the surrounding facts also indicated that the department had accepted the HUF status in later years for the same assets.

Conclusion: The properties were to be treated as HUF property and the income therefrom was assessable in the status of HUF, not as the assessee's individual income.

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