TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1971 (3) TMI 18
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.... to as " assessee ", is a medical practitioner and is a specialist in the treatment of skin diseases. The assessment year is 1958-59, the relevant previous year being the financial year ending on 31st March, 1958. During the previous year, the assessee went from New Delhi to Stockholm to attend the International Congress of Dermatology as an official delegate from India. The assessee claimed a sum of Rs. 5,682 as expenses incurred by him on this tour. According to him before he went to Stockholm he also visited Russia for a week and the United Kingdom for two weeks. In Stockholm he stayed for about a week. The expenses claimed were Rs. 4,032 on air passage and the balance of Rs. 1,650 was on living and other miscellaneous expenses. The Income-tax Officer disallowed the entire expenses on the ground that, this is an expenditure of a capital nature as the visit of the assessee to attend the International Congress of Dermatology was ostensibly to further his knowledge and as such it brought into existence an asset or an advantage of an enduring nature. The Income-tax Officer also mentioned that there was no voucher for hotel expenses and as such the expenses to the extent of Rs.....
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....iven a flat on a caretaker basis to one Mr. Leone Collave and Miss Crista Brauet, for which he was paid Rs. 3,000 by these two parties. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner accepted the assessee'e explanation and the sum of Rs. 3,000 was, therefore, deleted as assessee's income from undisclosed sources. Against the decision of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner the Income-tax Officer filed an appeal before the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal and it was contended that the entire expenditure of Rs. 5,682 on the foreign tour of the assessee was expenditure of a capital nature and hence not allowable. In any case, that part of the expenditure incurred on boarding and lodging which was obviously an expenditure of a personal nature was disallowable under section 10(2)(xv) of the Act. The Tribunal found that there was no dispute that, in the instant case, the foreign tour was a study lecture tour and as such the Tribunal was of the opinion that the ratio of the decision in the case of Dr. P. Vadamalayan v. Commissioner of Income-tax was applicable to the facts of the case. It was, therefore, held that the Appellate Assistant Commissioner was justified in holding that the sum of Rs. 5,6....
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....of this court was invited to several decisions, a Bench decision of the Mysore High Court was not considered. It is true that this particular decision of the Mysore High Court was not brought to our notice. We will, therefore, have to examine the said decision in the light of the facts of the present case. Mr. Sharma also pointed out that in the case of Dr. M. S. Shroff, it was found by the Tribunal that the main object and purpose of the expenditure was for the assessee to keep himself up-to-date in the techniques of his profession. It was pointed out that the assessee was also an employee of Dr. Shroff's Charitable Hospital and, therefore, in the process of his study tour abroad, the assessee had also incidentally derived some benefit in his capacity as an employee and as such there was need for apportionment of the expenses between the assessee and his employer. In the present case, according to Mr. Sharma, the main purpose and object of the assessee's visit abroad was to attend the International Congress of Dermatology, and, therefore, the expenses could only be attributable to his trip abroad as a delegate. In this connection our attention was invited to a Bench decision of....
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....t what the Tribunal had to decide was not whether the expenditure had nothing to do with the assesse's business, profession or vocation but whether it was incurred wholly and exclusively for the purpose of the assessee's business, profession or vocation. Instead of addressing itself to that question, the Tribunal seemed to have examined the facts of the case to find out whether the expenditure in question was in any way unconnected with the profession or vocation of the assessee. This was held to be a wholly wrong approach and did not accord with the requirement of section 10(2)(xv). The case is, therefore, not an authority for the proposition in which the Tribunal has come to a definite finding as to whether the expenditure was incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the assessee's business, profession or vocation. If the Tribunal's finding was in favour of the assessee on that point, the actual decision in the case might have gone in his favour. This is what was said in that case : "...we do not mean to say that whenever a businessman or a person practising any profession or having a vocation attends a conference of his co-businessmen or persons having the sa....
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.... in that case was not spent for the purpose of business. In that case the assessee, who was the owner of a printing press, attended the International Printers Conference in Amsterdam representing the Andhra Pradesh Printers Association. Besides attending the conference at Amsterdam lie was visiting vaious countries in Europe and utilised his time, for studying the various types of printing and machinery. The expenses of the tour, were held to be an expenditure incurred by a businessman in keeping him abreast of the latest techniques of his business and were incurred wholly and exclusively for that purpose. The view taken by the Tribunal is, therefore, not only in accord with the decision of this court in Dr. M. S. Shroff's case, where the decision of the Madras High Court in Dr. P. Vadamalayan's case, was followed by us, but is also in consonance with what was held by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Commissioner of Income-tax v. S. Krishna Rao. The first question is, therefore, answered in favour of the assessee and against the Commissioner. The second question relates to an item of Rs. 3,000, which according to the Appellate Tribunal has been held to be a receipt of a ca....
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....agreed to pay him for the work a consolidated fee of Rs. 3,000 and travelling allowances on the scale admissible for High Court judges. The assessee claimed that the sum of Rs. 3,000, received by him was exempt from assessment under section 4(3)(vii). It was held that the amount received by him fell within the scope of the term "income, profits or gains" under section 6 for it arose from the exercise of the occupation of an arbitrator by the assessee and that it was also not a receipt of a casual nature. In B. Malick v. Commissioner of Income-tax, a case cited by, the counsel for the assessee, this case was dissented from by the High Court of Allahabad on the ground that it was the case of a retired judge and not the case of a sitting judge with which the court was concerned. Whether the difference between the status of the two judges made such a great difference as to convert the receipt of one of them into a receipt from income, business or profession and the receipt of the other as that of a casual and nonrecurring nature is not one that arises for decision in the case before us. The fact remains that two different views have been taken. What was material in the case before the ....