2000 (2) TMI 84

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....er reference are 1968-69 and 1969-70. The following question has been referred for opinion of this court : "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Appellate Tribunal was correct in law in holding that the Income-tax Officer was not correct in clubbing the income of the two firms consisting of the same partners with the same profit-sharing ratio formed only for the executi....

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....se name the contracts/orders were secured for both the places. He clubbed the income of both the firms though separate returns had been filed. In the appeal, the Appellate Assistant Commissioner found that no fund had actually passed from one firm to another. He accordingly allowed the appeal thereby rejecting the clubbing of income of the two firms by the Assessing Officer. In further appeal, th....

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....nership Act. (3) The law, English as well as Indian, has for some specific purposes, relaxed its rigid notions and extended a limited personality to a firm. (4) Under the income-tax law a firm is an independent and distinct juristic person for the purpose of assessment as well as for recovery of tax as it is a 'person' within the meaning of section 2(31) of the Act, having its own entity and per....

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....is a mixed question of fact and law. (8) The prime guideline to determine this latter question is the cumulative effect or the totality of all the material factors relating to the object and intendment of the partnerships and businesses, their nature, character and identity, coupled with the factum or otherwise of interlacing and interlocking of funds between the two firms. (9) The very question....