Life insurance proceeds held to remain estate assets under section 19A, excluding them from the assessee's net wealth.

A right to receive life insurance proceeds was treated as part of the estate rather than as a taxable asset in the assessee's individual net wealth. Although the will did not expressly appoint her as executor and she had not been appointed by a competent authority, the will read as a whole, together with the partition deed and earlier income-tax reasoning, supported treating her as an executrix by implication or, at minimum, as a person administering the estate within the extended meaning of executor in section 19A. Because the estate had not been fully distributed before the compromise with the insurer, the proceeds remained governed by section 19A and were excluded from the assessee's wealth assessments.

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Issues: Whether the value of the assessee's right to receive life insurance proceeds was includible in her net wealth for the relevant assessment years, or whether it was assessable separately in the hands of an executor under section 19A of the Wealth-tax Act.

Analysis: The assessee had not been appointed as administrator by a competent authority, and the will did not name her as executor in express terms. However, reading the will as a whole, and in the light of the subsequent understanding reflected in the partition deed and the earlier income-tax decision, the assessee could be treated as an executrix by implication and, in any event, as a person administering the estate within the extended meaning of executor in the explanation to section 19A. The estate had not been completely distributed before the compromise with the Life Insurance Corporation, and the right to receive the policy amounts therefore remained part of the estate governed by section 19A rather than an asset taxable in the assessee's hands as legatee.

Conclusion: The right to receive the insurance proceeds was not includible in the assessee's net wealth for the years under consideration, and the amount had to be excluded from the assessments.

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