Writ jurisdiction and disrupted Hindu undivided family assessment: absence of a deeming provision made the tax assessment invalid

An alternative statutory remedy did not bar writ jurisdiction where the challenge went to the assessing authority's competence and the impugned order was alleged to be without jurisdiction; the writ petitions were therefore maintainable. On excess profits tax, a disrupted Hindu undivided family could not be assessed as a continuing joint unit in the absence of a deeming provision comparable to section 25A of the 1922 Income-tax Act. Because the Travancore Act taxed the person carrying on the business and contained no fiction preserving the family for assessment, the assessment on the dissolved family was invalid and beyond jurisdiction.

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Issues: (i) Whether the writ petitions were maintainable notwithstanding the availability of a statutory appellate remedy; and (ii) whether an assessment to excess profits tax could validly be made on a Hindu undivided family after its disruption, in the absence of a deeming provision comparable to section 25A of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922.

Issue (i): Whether the writ petitions were maintainable notwithstanding the availability of a statutory appellate remedy.

Analysis: The availability of an alternative statutory remedy does not ordinarily bar relief under Article 226, but the bar is not absolute where the impugned order is alleged to have been made without jurisdiction or to be a nullity. The challenge in these cases went to the very jurisdiction of the assessing authority, and the same foundational objection could be examined without prejudice to the appellate machinery.

Conclusion: The writ petitions were maintainable and were not liable to be rejected merely because an appeal was available.

Issue (ii): Whether an assessment to excess profits tax could validly be made on a Hindu undivided family after its disruption, in the absence of a deeming provision comparable to section 25A of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922.

Analysis: The Travancore Excess Profits Tax Act, 1120 charged excess profits tax on the person carrying on the business during the chargeable accounting period, and section 15 contemplated assessment of that person as existing on the date of assessment. Unlike the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, the Travancore Act contained no provision deeming a disrupted Hindu undivided family to continue for assessment purposes. Once the family had become divided before assessment, the representative character of the karta had ceased, and the statute did not authorise assessment on a non-existent joint family unit.

Conclusion: The assessment on the disrupted Hindu undivided family was invalid and without jurisdiction.

Final Conclusion: The court upheld the challenge to the assessments and granted relief to the assessee on the ground that the taxing authority lacked jurisdiction to assess a disrupted Hindu undivided family under the Travancore Act.

Ratio Decidendi: In the absence of a statutory deeming provision continuing a Hindu undivided family for assessment after disruption, a tax assessment that must be made on the person who carried on the business during the chargeable accounting period cannot validly be completed against a family that no longer exists as a joint family unit.

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