TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1996 (5) TMI 26
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....ndivided family or otherwise ? " The facts of the case are that the family of the assessee consists of the karta, his son and wife. The Wealth-tax Officer treated the status as specified Hindu undivided family. On appeal before the Commissioner of Wealth-tax (Appeals), it was stated that the only member of the Hindu undivided family who had taxable wealth was the wife of the karta and no coparcener is having any taxable wealth. In these circumstances, it was submitted that the status of the assessee could not be taken as that of a specified Hindu undivided family. The Commissioner of Wealth-tax (Appeals) allowed the appeal and sent the matter back to the Wealth-tax Officer to give reasons for adopting the status of specified Hindu undivide....
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.... who acquires by birth an interest in the joint or coparcenary property is a coparcener. The joint Hindu family constituting a coparcenary is required to have a common male ancestor with lineal descendants in the male line whereas a joint Hindu family consists of all persons lineally descended from a common ancestor and includes their wives and unmarried daughters. In Kalyanji Vithaldas v. CIT [1937] 5 ITR 90, the Privy Council has made a distinction between a coparcenary and a Hindu undivided family and it was held that a female can be a member of the Hindu undivided family. In this case Moolji owned the property as a separate property which was gifted by him to his sons Kanji and Sewdas who had no sons. It was further held that the asses....
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...., the income of such property has to be considered as the income of the individual and not of Hindu undivided family. It was observed by Chandrachud J., " the joint Hindu family is thus a larger body consisting of a group of persons who are united by the tie of sapindaship arising by birth, marriage or adoption. ' The fundamental principle of the Hindu joint family is the sapindaship. Without that it is impossible to form a joint Hindu family ... It is the family, relation, the sapinda relation, which distinguishes the joint family and is of its very essence ... The appellant's wife became his sapinda on her marriage with him. The daughter too, on her birth, became a sapinda and until she leaves the family by marriage, the tie of sapindashi....