Gifted property accepted by the Department meant the wife's bank balances and interest were excluded from wealth-tax assessment.

Bank balances and interest standing in the wife's name were held outside the assessee's wealth-tax net from assessment year 1971-72 onwards, because the underlying property was claimed to have been genuinely gifted to her and accepted by the Department. The earlier view had treated the assessee as the real owner and included the related balances in net wealth, but it failed to consider this material contention. That omission was treated as a mistake apparent from the record, justifying correction of the earlier finding and exclusion of the wife's bank balances and interest from assessment.

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Issues: Whether the balances and interest standing to the credit of the assessee's wife in the bank account were includible in the assessee's net wealth from the assessment year 1971-72 onwards, in view of the claim that the underlying property had been gifted to the wife and accepted by the Department.

Analysis: The earlier order had proceeded on the basis that the assessee was the real owner of the property and, on that footing, upheld inclusion of the related bank balances in net wealth. The submission that, from assessment year 1971-72 onwards, the property had been treated as a genuine gift to the wife and that the Department had not thereafter included the property value was not considered in the original order. The omission of this material contention constituted a mistake apparent from the record and warranted correction of the relevant finding.

Conclusion: The bank balances and interest standing to the credit of the wife were not includible in the assessee's wealth-tax assessments from assessment year 1971-72 onwards.

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