Statutory fiction for legal representatives is confined to pre-death income; post-death estate income is assessed separately.

Section 24 of the Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950 was read as confining the statutory fiction to assessment of the deceased assessee's income and recovery of the tax that would have been payable by the deceased. The fiction could not be extended to treat post-death income from the estate as income of the deceased. The legal representatives were therefore liable only for the deceased's income up to the date of death, while income accruing thereafter was assessable in their hands independently as tenants-in-common. The wider assessment of the entire accounting year as if the deceased had survived was unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the legal representatives of a deceased assessee under the Agricultural Income-tax Act could be assessed on the entire income from the estate for the whole accounting year as if the deceased had survived, or whether they were liable only for the deceased's income up to the date of death and thereafter as tenants-in-common.

Analysis: Section 24 of the Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950 was construed as limiting the statutory fiction to assessment of the deceased person's income and recovery of the tax that would have been payable by the deceased. The corresponding provisions in section 24B of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 and section 159 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 were considered, but the earlier decisions on legal representatives were held to concern only income of the deceased accrued before death and received in the same previous year. The fiction of continuance of the deceased could not be extended to treat post-death income from the estate as the deceased's income.

Conclusion: The legal representatives were assessable only for the period up to the date of death, and for the subsequent period they were liable independently as tenants-in-common; the assessment on the entire income as if the deceased had lived throughout the year was unsustainable.

Ratio Decidendi: A statutory fiction creating liability in the hands of legal representatives is confined to the purpose for which it is enacted and cannot be extended to tax post-death income from the estate as the deceased person's income unless the statute expressly so provides.

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