2001 (7) TMI 75

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....hickens, etc., cannot be treated as 'animals' for the purposes of grant of exemption under section 2(e)(1)(iii) of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957?" The factual position in a nut shell is as follows. The assessee, an individual, filed his return of wealth and claimed that the value of the broiler chickens, etc., cannot be included in the wealth of the assessee in view of section 2(e)(1)(iii) of the Act. The Assessing Officer held that broiler chickens, etc., are not covered by the said exemption and an addition of Rs. 1,38,114 as movable property was made. The matter was carried in appeal before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner (in short "the AAC"). The said authority after referring to the definition of "animal" in the World Book Dictionar....

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....pril, 1981, or any subsequent assessment year, this sub-clause shall have effect subject to the modification that for item (i) thereof, the following item shall be substituted, namely '(i) (a) agricultural land other than land comprised in any tea, coffee, rubber or cardamom plantation ; (b) any building owned or occupied by a cultivator of, or receiver of rent or revenue out of, agricultural land other than land comprised in any tea, coffee, rubber or cardamom plantation : Provided that the building is on or in the immediate vicinity of the land and is a building which the cultivator or the receiver of the rent or revenue by reason of his connection with the land requires as a dwelling-house or a store-house or an outhouse (c) ....

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....e desert; 3b. any mammal, as distinguished from a bird, reptile, and other lower forms. 4. a person who is like a beast in the way that he acts or thinks, brutish or degenerate person, his intellect is not replenished, he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts (Shakespeare)." Adopting the technical meaning a bird is to be treated as an "animal". Reference was made by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner to the views expressed by an author in the book Law and Practice of Gift-tax and Wealth-tax , 1984 edition, by C. A. Gulanikar. Animals in law include any animate being, which is not human, endowed with the power of voluntary motions. It includes all living creatures not human. "The common law divides animals having th....