1981 (4) TMI 180

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....,000 for the asst. yr. 1976-77 as against nil wealth shown by the assessee club. As against these orders of the WTO, the assessee preferred appeals before the AAC who, following the decision reported in (1979) 12 CTR (Guj) 126 : 123 ITR 395 in the case of Orient Club vs. WTO Circle IV, Ward K. Ahmedabad annulled the assessments, thus, allowing the appeals of the assessee. As against this order of the AAC, the Revenue is in appeal before us. 3. The ld. Deptl. Rep. relied on the decision reported in 46 ITR 953 in the case of Suhashini Karuri & Anr. vs. WTO where their Lordships of the Calcutta High Court have held that joint trustees must be taken to be a single unit in law and not as an 'AOP'. According to the ld. Deptl. Rep. club is a si....

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....to follow the decision reported in 57 ITR 202. He took us through the aforesaid judgment of the Bombay High Court and pointed out that the Bombay High Court had no where laid down that the extended meaning of individual covers only trustee and not the general categories of AOP or BOI. The test laid down was at page 206 of the judgment which reads: "If having regard to the nature of the group, it could be treated as a single collective unit, the term 'individual' will be vide enough to include it." The Bombay High Court rejected the contention of Shri Palkhiwala before them that the WT Act had mentioned a smaller categories of taxable-entities as compared to IT Act and, therefore, the categories left out in the s. 3 of the WT Act, shou....

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....been referred to by their Lordships before giving a decision as under: "Under r. 2(i) of the WT Rules, 1857 r/w s. 4(1)(b), the legislature has given a clear indication that an AOP is not an assessable entity covered by the word 'individual' in s. 3 of the WT Act, 1957. Just as ss. 5 and 21 give a positive indication that the word 'individual' covers trustees of a trust, s. 2(h)(iii) and s. 4(1)(b) r/w rule 2 of the WT Rules gives a negative indication that the word 'individual' in s. 3 does not cover a body of individuals or AOP". As this is the only case which laid down the dictum with regard to the specific question whether individual includes AOP or not, this Bench is bound to take cognizance of the aforesaid decision and give a f....