TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1976 (7) TMI 90
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....he family had no right to claim partition of the Hindu undivided family property and, therefore, she was not a member of the Hindu undivided family. The Appellant Assistant Commissioner rejected the said contention on the ground that it was well settled that a Hindu male along with his wife constituted a Hindu undivided family and that the wife of the Kartha was a member of the Hindu undivided family. Observing that the net wealth of the wife of the Kartha for the year under appeal had exceed Rs. 1 lakh, the Appellate Assistant Commissioner upheld the levy of the higher rate of Wealth-tax. Against this order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner the assessee has filed this appeal before us. 2. The learned counsel for the assessee Shri Srinivasan vehemently contended that the lower authorities have erred in applying the rate of tax under sub-para 1 (1A) of the schedule to the Wealth-tax Act. He submitted that the wife of the Kartha of the Hindu undivided family cannot be considered to be a member of the Hindu undivided family. He pointed out that the term "member" occurring in sub-para 1(A) of the Schedule to the Wealth-tax Act only refers to a coparcener. Since the wife of the....
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....o the Wealth-tax Act reads as under:- "(1A) In case of every Hindu undivided family which has at least one member whose net wealth assessable for the assessment year exceeds Rs. 1,00,000." In respect of such a Hindu undivided family higher rates of tax are prescribed under the Schedule. The question is whether the assessee family is a family as defined in the above para (1A). The members of the assessee family are three in number, viz. Mr. Samiappa Mudaliar, Mrs. Samiappa Mudaliar and his son. 5. The Supreme Court in the case of N. V. Narendranath vs. Commissioner of Wealth-tax, Andhra Pradesh(1), considered the question of the status of the assessee before it. The assessee therein claimed to be assessed in the status of a Hindu undivided family. During the material time, the assessee family consisted of himself, his wife and his two minor daughters and there was no other male member. The Wealth-tax Officer did not accept this assessee's contention and assessed him as an individual. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner concurred with him. The Tribunal held that he should be assessed in the status of a Hindu undivided family. The High Court disagreed with the view of the Tr....
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.... to consider the question whether a single individual male or female would constitute a family. At page 495 their Lordships observed as under:- "Family" connotes a group of people related by blood or marriage. According to Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 3rd edition, the word "Family" means the group consisting of parents and their children, whether living together or not; in a wider sense, all those who are nearly connected by blood or affinity; a person's children regarded collectively; those descended or claiming descent from a common ancestor; a house kindred, lineage; a race; a people or group of peoples. According to Aristotle (Politics I) it is the characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, or just and unjust, and the association of living beings who have this sense make a family and a State. It would follow from the above that the word "family" always signifies a group. Plurality of persons is an essential attribute of a family. A single person, male or female, does not constitute a family. He or she would remain, what is inherent in the very nature of things, an individual, a lonely was farer till per chance he or she finds a mate, A family co....
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....roperty for the time being, that is to say, the three generations next to the holder in unbroken male descent. Since under the Mitakshara law, the right to joint family property by birth is vested in the male issues only, females who come in only as heirs to obstructed heritage (sapratibandhadaya), cannot be coparcenars. But we are concerned under the Income-tax Act with the question whether the appellant's wife and unmarried daughter can with him be members of a Hindu undivided family and not of a coparcenary. In the words of Sir George Rankin, who delivered the opinion of the Judicial Committee in Kalyanji's case, 5 ITR 90: The phrase 'Hindu undivided family is used in the statute with reference not to one school; and their Lordships think it a mistake in method to begin by pasting over the wide phrase of the Act the words 'Hindu coparcenary.' All the more that it is not possible to say on the face of the Act that no female can be a member." Outside the limits of coparcenary, there is a fringe of persons ' males and females' who constitute an undivided or joint family, There is no limit to the number of persons who can compose it nor to their remoteness from the common ance....