Settled partition of Hindu family income cannot be disturbed or clubbed into HUF without fresh evidence of jointness.

Where a Hindu family had long been treated and assessed as divided after a partial partition, the revenue could not invoke section 25-A of the 1922 Act or section 171 of the 1961 Act to ignore that position and club the separate incomes of family members with the HUF income without fresh material showing jointness or reunion. Earlier acceptance of the partition by the revenue and separate assessments supported the settled status, while a consolidated list of assets and a diary were insufficient by themselves to displace it. A remand direction sought through an appellate letter was procedurally unsound, but it did not yield separate relief once the substantive assessment failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the alleged partial partition of the Hindu family could be ignored and the income of the individual family members be clubbed with the income of the HUF by invoking section 25-A of the 1922 Act or section 171 of the 1961 Act. (ii) Whether the appellate authority's letter calling for a remand report amounted to a valid order.

Issue (i): Whether the alleged partial partition of the Hindu family could be ignored and the income of the individual family members be clubbed with the income of the HUF by invoking section 25-A of the 1922 Act or section 171 of the 1961 Act.

Analysis: The assessee had been separately assessed for many years after the partial partition, and the partition deed had earlier been acted upon by the revenue when the voluntary disclosure petitions were accepted and separate assessments were made. The Court held that the provisions dealing with recognition of partition had no application where the family had never been assessed as a joint family in the relevant manner. The consolidated list of assets and the diary did not, by themselves, establish jointness or reunion. In the absence of fresh material, the revenue could not arbitrarily disturb the settled position merely because a later officer took a different view.

Conclusion: The clubbing of the income of the family members with the income of the HUF was unjustified and the assessee succeeded on this issue.

Issue (ii): Whether the appellate authority's letter calling for a remand report amounted to a valid order.

Analysis: The manner in which the remand was sought was found to be procedurally unsound. The appellate function is judicial in nature, and if further inquiry is required, a proper remand order should be passed and communicated. On the facts, the impugned direction for further inquiry did not survive because the substantive assessment itself was not sustained.

Conclusion: The challenge to the remand direction did not survive, and the assessee obtained no separate operative relief on this aspect.

Final Conclusion: The departmental appeals failed, the assessee's substantive challenge succeeded, and the assessment founded on clubbing of the family members' income was set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a family has long been treated and assessed as divided, and no fresh material shows jointness, the revenue cannot reopen the settled position or invoke partition provisions to club the separate incomes of the members with the income of the HUF merely on conjectural evidence.

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