1994 (1) TMI 8

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....he instance of the Commissioner of Wealth-tax, the following question has been referred by the Appellate Tribunal under section 27(1) of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957 ("the Act", for short), in respect of the assessment years 1977-78 to 1980-81 : " Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was justified in upholding the order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner of ....

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..... Before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, the assessee contended that the house was to be regarded as one unit as it was within one holding number. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner held that if the holding was one and house was also one, the same was to be regarded as one house and directed the Assessing Officer to determine the entire value of the house as one for exemption under section....

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...., it was observed : " The word 'house' is not defined in the Act. This court in Ramavatar v. Asst. STO [1962] 1 SCR 279 ; AIR 1961 SC 1325, said that the correct approach is to construe the word in that sense which people conversant with the subject-matter with which the statute is dealing would attribute to it. Counsel for the respondent rightly contended that the word 'house' would in its ord....

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....Court, it follows that the word "house" would include any building irrespective of its use, that is to say, it may be used for business purposes or as a residence or as a school, and it should not be restricted to a dwelling house ; and that a building may be divided into several legal houses, for example, separate flats of a building each of which is separately let and separately occupied by diff....