TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1968 (12) TMI 16
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....ons furnished an account of the property passing on the death of the deceased in which 408 acres, 71 cents of agricultural land, which was the subject-matter of the settlement deeds executed on 29th May, 1955, and 30th May, 1955, in favour of his wife, three sons and two grandsons was claimed to be not the property of the deceased on the date of his death. The Assistant Controller of Estate Duty, however, found that the right of possession and enjoyment of the said agricultural land was conferred on the wife, three sons and two grandsons in 1953. The deceased had delivered possession of another 136.82 acres of agricultural land to his first son in 1953, but had not executed any deed of settlement in respect of it. In respect of 408.71 acres of agricultural land, however, though the deeds of settlement were executed, as stated above, those deeds, it may be noticed, were within two years prior to the date of death of the deceased. The value of 408.71 acres of land and of 136.82 acres of land were determined for purposes of the estate duty assessment, at Rs. 1,22,605 and Rs. 37,366, respectively. Inasmuch as the Assistant Controller considered that the property, which was subject-matt....
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....ivos whether by way of transfer, delivery, declaration of trust, settlement upon persons in succession or otherwise, which shall not have been bona fide made two years or more before the death of the deceased shall be deemed to pass on the death : Provided that in the case of gifts made for public charitable purposes the period shall be six months. (2) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall not apply to gifts made in consideration of marriage or which are proved to the satisfaction of the Controller to have been part of the normal expenditure of the deceased, but not exceeding rupees five thousand in the aggregate. " Section 10 : " Property taken under any gift, whenever made, shall be deemed to pass on the donor's death to the extent that bona fide possession and enjoyment of it was not immediately assumed by the donee and thenceforward retained to the entire exclusion of the donor or of any benefit to him by contract or otherwise : Provided that the property shall not be deemed to pass by reason only that it was not, as from the date of the gift, exclusively retained as aforesaid, if, by means of the surrender of the reserved benefit or otherwise, it is subsequently enjoyed....
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....le still vests in him and under section 6 of the Estate Duty Act, he is in law deemed to have the disposing power of the property and therefore that property passes on his death. To our minds, these propositions admit of no doubt and are well established. Even where a gift or disposition of property has taken effect under law and the donor has divested himself of his ownership and title therein, the Estate Duty Act has considered even those properties to be part of the estate of the deceased, if it is established that he was still enjoying the benefit thereof on the date of his death, i.e., if it is shown that the donee was not bona fide completely in possession and enjoyment of the property taken under a gift, immediately after the gift was made, that property is deemed to pass on the donor's death to the extent that bona fide possession and enjoyment of it was not immediately assumed by the donee and thenceforward retained to the entire exclusion of the donor or of any benefit to him by contract or otherwise. This is an exception to section 6, which provides that all property which the deceased at the time of his death was capable of disposing passes on his death. The learned adv....
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....est remained in him. " The answer ", Jenkins L.J. observes at page 518 " can only be, in my view, that he had no beneficial interest left whatever ; his only remaining interest consisted in the fact that his name still stood on the register as holder of the shares, but, having parted in fact with the whole of his beneficial interest, he could not, in my view, assert any beneficial title by virtue of his position as registered holder. In other words, in my view, the effect of these transactions, having regard to the form and the operation of the transfers, the nature of the property transferred, and the necessity for registration in order to perfect the legal title, coupled with the discretionary power on the part of the directors to withhold registration, must be that, pending registration, the deceased was in the position of a trustee of the legal title in the shares for the transferees". It must be noticed that the transfers were effected under seal, as formal documents. In English law documents executed under seat and ordinary documents have significance. We are, therefore, unable to apply the said principle to the facts of this case. In Richards v. Delbridge Sir Jessel M.R. lai....