1973 (12) TMI 1

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.... necessary for the decision, in a short compass, are these: In the year 1820 one Smt. Chitra Dassi executed an ekrarnama making a gift of a piece of land for religious purposes. In 1842 she executed a will referring to the fact that she had earlier made the property debutter and directed her four sons, the executors, to perform the daily service of Sri Radhagobindjee. She died in 1855. In 1876 a suit was filed in the Calcutta High Court praying that the trust should be administered by the court and a scheme prepared. Subsequently, there were a number of applications made from time to time and a number of orders were also made on them. In 1929 a scheme of administration was framed and a little later the official trustee of Bengal was appoint....

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....that there was no trust in the technical sense, that is to say, as understood in the English law. In respect of the first part of the second question both parties before the High Court agreed that in that question the word " trust " did not mean a trust in the technical or the English sense. The High Court pointed out that it has been held that a dedication is a trust in the general sense within the meaning of t he expression as used in sections 4, 40 and 41 of the Income-tax Act and the word " trust " can be applied to Hindu endowments. On the second, part of the question it was held that the endowment is a private religious trust and the documents creating it or confirming it grant no benefit to the members of the public, that an order ma....

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....nnected by tenure, was dedicated to the religious services of the idol. The rents constituted, therefore, in legal contemplation, its property. The sebait had not the legal property, but only the title of manager of a religious endowment. In Prosunno Kumari Debya v. Golab Chand Baboo , the above observations were cited with approval. In Manobar Ganesh Tambekar v. Lakhmiram Govinndram, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court observed: " The Hindu law, like the Roman law and those derived from it, recognises, not only corporate bodies with rights of property vested in the corporation apart from its individual members, but also the juridical persons or subjects called foundations ....... It is consistent with the grants having been mad....

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....t C.J. held: " ' Individual ', where first used, must mean human being, because it is used as something distinct from a joint family, firm and company. The whole expression seems to me to mean ' every human being, Hindu undivided family, company, firm and other association of human beings." Though in consequence of this decision the Income-tax (Amendment) Act, 1939, amended the words de association of individuals " into " association of persons ", the word " individual ", being first of the six assessable units. mentioned in section 3, was retained and was not amended into " person ". It could not be changed into " person " for the obvious reason that the word " person " is of wider import and includes any company or association or bo....