TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1972 (5) TMI 10
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....-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rs. December 28, 1954 Suresh Chandra 75,000 Amrit Rai 75,000 Kamla Devi 25,000 November 1, 1956 Suresh Chandra 35,000 Amrit Rai 35,000 July 31, 1957 Suresh Chandra 61,000 Amrit Rai 61,000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The accounts showed that the deceased as karta of the Hindu undivided family effected the dispositions of Rs. 75,000 to each of his sons and Rs. 25,000 to his married daughter, Kamla Devi, by debiting his personal account with Messrs. Indraprastha Corporation P. Ltd. and crediting the accounts of the respective recipients therein. On December 28, 1954, when the above dispositions were effected, the opening balance with Messrs. Indraprastha Corporation P. Ltd. was Rs. 5,455-15-3 and the closing balance was Rs. 2,454-9-3. As there was no sufficient cash balance with the said company on the material date and inasmuch as Suresh Chandra and Amrit Rai, the sons of the deceased, were minors at the relevant ti....
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....es. He referred to the fact that the amounts given to each of the two sons were equal on each of the three dates and this, he suggested, also supported the plea of partial partition. It was admitted that this plea was not taken by the accountable persons at the earlier stages, but it was urged that what is the legal effect of a transaction is entirely a question of law and that the counsel was entitled to argue that the transaction which had taken place on the three dates represented partial partition of the family property and did not amount to gifts of money by the father to his two sons. The Tribunal considered this fresh plea and held that there had been partial partition of the assets made by the deceased as the karta of the family, on the three dates severally and consequently, the sums of Rs. 1,50,000, Rs. 70,000, and Rs. 1,22,000 passed out of the assets of the family on the three relevant dates and these amounts did not constitute the joint assets of the coparcenary on November 22, 1957, when the deceased died. It was accordingly held that the sum should be excluded from the dutiable estate. Thus the Tribunal confirmed the order of the Appellate Controller, though on diff....
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....al on each of the three dates; but does that result follow from the premises ? The assessee himself did not set up that case. His case on the other hand was that the deceased had made gifts to two of his sons on various dates between December 28, 1954, and July 31, 1957, in addition to a sum of 25,000 given to a married daughter. It was therefore not his case that a partial partition had taken place between members of the family, and the disposition of money was in accordance with that partition. It was only at the stage of the second appeal before the Appellate Tribunal that the question of partial partition was raised by the counsel for the accountable persons. Shri G . C. Sharma, appearing for the Controller of Estate Duty, contended that, according to the Appellate Tribunal, the family was possessed of total assets worth Rs. 12,11,602 as assessed by the Assistant Controller of Estate Duty and that the total sum of Rs. 1,75,000 given on December 28, 1954, and Rs. 1,92,000 given on November 1, 1956, and July 31, 1957, came up to a figure of Rs. 3,67,000. The joint Hindu family consisted at that time of the deceased, his wife, Smt. Jawala Devi, and his two minor sons, Suresh Chan....
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.... Balkrishna v. Ramkrishna, followed in Bhagwati Prasad Sah v. Dulhin Rameshwari Juer, Sir George Lowndes, delivering a judgment of the Board, adopted the statement by Sir John Edge in Palani Ammal v. Muthu Venkatachala : " It is also now beyond doubt that a member of such a joint family can separate himself from the other members of the joint family and is, on separation, entitled to have his share in the property of the joint family ascertained and partitioned off for him, and that the remaining coparceners, without any special agreement amongst themselves, may continue to be coparceners and to enjoy as members of a joint family what remained after such a partition of the family property. That the remaining members continued to be joint may, if disputed, be inferred from the way in which their family business was carried on after their previous coparcener has separated from them. " In the light of the principles laid down in that decision, it was necessary to show that the share of the two sons had been ascertained and partitioned off while the deceased and his wife remained joint with respect to the remaining property. In the present case, there is nothing to indicate that out ....