TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1994 (11) TMI 58
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.... year 1975-76 ? 4. Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Appellate Tribunal was right in holding that interest of Rs. 4,53,710 being the interest on money taken on fixed deposits for paying the estate duty on the estate of late Sri Anantharamakrishnan should be allowed as a deduction ? 5. Whether the Appellate Tribunal was right in holding that deduction under section 80M should be allowed on the gross dividend income and not on the net dividend income having regard to the provisions of section 80AA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 ? " The first three questions are covered by the judgment of this court in CIT v. Amalgamations (P.) Ltd. [1977] 108 ITR 895. The fourth question is answered against the Department in our judgment delivered today, in Tax Cases Nos. 1109 to 1113 and 1180 of 1979 (Amalgamations (P.) Ltd. v. CIT). The fifth question is covered by the judgment of the Supreme Court in Distributors (Baroda) P. Ltd. v. Union of India [1985] 155 ITR 120. The questions are answered accordingly. No costs. Tax Cases Nos. 561, 569 and 570 of 1981 : Vide our judgment in Tax Cases Nos. 1109 to 1113 and 1180 of 1979 (Amalgamations (P.) Ltd. v. CIT) delivered ....
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....n respect of the properties which passed on the death of Sri Anantharamakrishnan was an admissible deduction under section 37 of the Incometax Act, 1961 ? " Was the alleged borrowing by the assessee-company for the purpose of paying the duty and is the deduction of the interest amount paid on the sums of the said borrowing permissible ? " is the other question. The Tribunal has made the statement of the case as agreed to between the parties in some detail but for the purpose of the present references, we are required to cull out only such facts that we think are essential and relevant. The assessee is a holding company holding shares in various subsidiary companies. Anantharamakrishnan, who had shares in some companies and other assets, was holding so much of shares in the assessee-company that the Income-tax Officer in his order has claimed him one, who held all the shares of the assessee-company. (However fractional or marginal the shares may be, but there should at least be one more person having shares in a company and no one (person) alone can hold all the shares of a company).It is thus not disputed that the assessee-company in so far as Anantharamakrishnan was concerned w....
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....urposes of the business of the assessee-company have fallen for consideration in the instant proceeding only, but the estate duty proceedings had taken the shape of a case of a contest by one of the legal representatives of the deceased Anantharamakrishnan after payment of duty by the assessee-company and the matter at that stage was considered by a Division Bench of this court which found no merit in her case for a review of the order of assessment and the Supreme Court confirmed the said order of this court. The facts stated in the judgment of this court in Kalyani Sundaram v. Asst. CED [1980] 126 ITR 615 disclose that Anantharamakrishnan died intestate in Madras on April 18, 1964, leaving behind him his widow by name, Valli, his two sons by name, Sivasailam and Krishnamoorthy, and two daughters, Kalyani and Seetha. Kalyani, who became entitled on the death of Anantharamakrishnan to a one-fifth share in his estate under the provisions of the Hindu Succession Act, gave power of attorney to her husband, who filed the writ petition questioning the order of the Assistant Controller, the first respondent therein, who refused to revise his order under which he had affirmed the wealth-....
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.... controlled company, viz., Messrs. Amalgamations Private Ltd., has to be treated as an accountable person. Hence, the controlled company was required to furnish an account in its capacity as an accountable person under section 19(1). " " In response to the notice issued, the company rendered an account on October 8, 1965, admitting therein the shares held by the deceased in Messrs. Amalgamations Private Ltd. and other allied concerns as also the amount due to the estate by Messrs. Amalgamations Private Ltd. and other allied concerns as also the amount due to the estate by Messrs. Amalgamations Private Ltd. The account rendered by the company was incomplete. " After referring to certain assets and liabilities, which were shown in the account, and after observing that the principal value of the assets were not given in the account, it was added : " In the covering letter, however, the company pointed out, ' we have long back intimated about the company being a controlled company, vide our letter dated April 27, 1965. As desired by you now, we are formally filing a return. So far as valuation and other assets are concerned, we have to refer you to the estate duty returns and other ....
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.... only to a case where section 17(1) was applied, and held that if the conditions prescribed in rule 15 were satisfied, it could be applied even independently of section 17(1). Kalyani Sundaram's husband, as her agent, wrote to the Assistant Controller seeking certain clarifications regarding the assessment. On June 25, 1974, the Assistant Controller in his reply referred to the authority given by Kalyani Sundaram to Shri Sivasailam and also the specific agreement to abide by the accounts rendered by him and to be bound by the explanations given by him and regretted his inability to furnish the particulars called for by Kalyani Sundaram's husband and referred him, for any particulars, to Sri Sivasailam, who was the person authorised by him. On January 2, 1975, Kalyani Sundaram's husband, as her agent, filed an application purporting to be under section 61 of the Act. He stated that a scrutiny of the assessment order showed that Messrs. Amalgamations Private Ltd. had been held to be an accountable person besides Sri Sivasailam, and unless there was a transfer of property presumably without consideration by the deceased to the assessee-company and any benefit accrued to him from the c....
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.... was a benefit to the deceased is not a matter which will always be apparent or lie on the surface. The type of persons against whom this provision is designed do not always act in the open. To require the Assistant Controller to invoke the provisions only after he finds : (1) transfer of property ; and (2) enjoyment of benefit, would practically render the provisions useless. Such a view would also open up vistas of tax evasion as a person would then have only to transfer properties to, and exercise control over, the company without disclosing any tangible benefits to him to avoid its application. These aspects cannot be lost sight of in construing section 17 and the rules. When once there is a finding or information on the question of transfer of property by the deceased, then the Assistant Controller can treat the company as an accountable person. He would have to go into the question of benefits accruing to the deceased from the company in the course of further investigation of the facts. At any rate, it cannot be postulated as a clear proposition of law that the two conditions have to be satisfied even when notice to file a return is issued. If at the stage of issue of notice....
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....n there never was any doubt in the mind of any one concerned with this assessment that Amalgamations was a controlled company. It is a private company, and not a company in which the public are substantially interested. It is a holding company, and not a subsidiary of another. And it has always been under the control of not more than five persons at a time. The statutory definition, therefore, fits it to perfection. A controlled company under the Estate Duty Act may come in for discussion in estate duty proceedings in one of two ways. An individual might die possessed of shares in a controlled company, and in the context of an assessment to estate duty of the properties passing on his death, which would include those shares as well, a question might arise touching the valuation of such shares. The Act and some of the Rules made thereunder have provided for a special formula for valuation of controlled company shares, familiarly known as the ' break-up value ' method. This method involves the valuer having first to go into a valuation of the net assets of the controlled company itself, and then proceed to arrive at the value of the deceased's shareholdings, as a proportionate slic....
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....half the net income of the company, then one-half of the company's assets is regarded as the measure of the property liable to estate duty. Further, the duty so determined is declared under the statute to be a first charge on the company's own assets. The Act accordingly makes provision for treating the company itself as an accountable person to the extent that liability is fixed on the company by an application of the special provisions of section 17. " One interesting aspect of the argument before the Bench, however, is stated in the judgment of Balasubramanyan J., in these words : " This brief discussion of the nature and pattern of assessments under section 17 leads to the next aspect of the inquiry in this case, namely, whether the assessment in question was one made under that section. This was the point which the learned Advocate-General argued for the petitioner. But the point was robbed of much of its controversy when the assessment order, on the very face of it, showed that the Assistant Controller had not proceeded to levy assessment in this case under section 17(1) on the basis of any transfer of property by the deceased to the company or on the basis of a comparison ....
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....on the principal value of the estate (section 34(1)). The principal value of any dutiable property shall ordinarily be its market value (see section 36). As for shares held by a deceased shareholder in a controlled company, their valuation is to be governed by prescribed rules (see section 20(e)). The Rules prescribe the break-up value method for valuation of shares in controlled companies (see rule 15 of the Controlled Companies Rules). Every incorporated company is under a duty to furnish particulars of the interest held by a deceased person in its share capital or debentures (see section 84). Besides, every company to which a deceased had made a transfer of property within the meaning of section 17 has to furnish statements of such particulars as the Controller requires by notice (see section 55). For the purposes of all these provisions, section 2(12A) defines an accountable person, or its variant ' person accountable ', as including every person in respect of whom any proceeding under this Act has been taken for the assessment of the principal value of the estate. The record of the assessment proceedings in this case shows some distinguishing features. In the first place, whi....
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....ble, what remains for application is only one provision, namely, section 2(12A). It is only in a competition between two provisions, one general and one special, that we are obliged to choose the latter and under that well-known rule of construction. But where we have on hand only one provision, we have to see whether it applied or not. Section 19(1)(a) may be a special provision, where both that provision and section 2(12A) might come in for application. But, on the facts of this case, when section 19(1)(a) does not enter into the reckoning at all, there is no question of reading section 2(12A) as a general provision. The next point urged by the learned Advocate-General was that the Assistant Controller, for his part, however, had not relied on section 2(12A). He cited the following passage from the assessment order to show that the Assistant Controller was under the mistaken impression that the company could be rendered accountable under section 19(1) even on the basis of the present assessment which was not one made under section 17(1). 'Since rule 15 of the Controlled Companies Rules is part of the scheme of section 17, the controlled company, viz., Amalgamations Pvt. Ltd., h....
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.... called upon to pay the amount of estate duty attributable to the inclusion of that slice in the chargeable estate. By section 19, the controlled company itself is liable to pay the corresponding amount of estate duty. In the present case, however, learned counsel urges, no slice of the assets of Amalgamations has been included in the estate of the deceased by the assessing authority as property deemed to pass on the death of the deceased and, therefore, the demand issued to the controlled company constitutes a mistake apparent from the record. The application of rule 15 is also contested and this, according to learned counsel, is a clear mistake committed by the Controller. It is urged that there is a mistake apparent from the record in the directions requiring Amalgamations to pay the entire amount of estate duty. It seems to us that all the heirs other than Sivasailam had agreed that, as accountable persons, they would abide by the accounts rendered by Sivasailam, and any information furnished by him with regard to the estate duty matter would be binding on them. The appellant cannot be heard now to dispute the quantum of liability and the basis on which the liability was compu....
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....situation would be liable and the assessment would be a charge upon its assets. Rule 15 of the Controlled Companies Rules, on the other hand, is concerned with an incidental aspect of valuation and the assets of the controlled company come in as a standard of reference. The assessment itself in such a case is not on the company or on its assets. The subject-matter of the assessment is the share which a shareholder of the controlled companies dies possessed of. The company is not liable for the duty based on the share valuation. The company's assets are by no means charged for the payment of that duty. In this context, thus, according to learned counsel for the Revenue, the estate duty paid by the assessee-company on the assets of the deceased, Anantharamakrishnan, being not a charge upon the assets of the company, it was not an essential expenditure for its business and, in any case, it can recover the duty paid by it from the heirs and legal representatives of the deceased, Anantharamakrishnan. Learned counsel for the assessee-company, however, has raised a substantial submission based solely on the scheme of the Estate Duty Act and has submitted that it would be erroneous if an....
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.... distributed assets of the company, has died before the deceased shall be deemed to have been a person accountable by virtue of clause (c). (2) Where a company incorporated outside India is accountable for any duty by virtue of the preceding sub-section or of this sub-section, every person who is a member of that company at the death shall also be accountable for a rateable part of that duty in proportion to the value of his interest in that company. (3) A person accountable for any duty by virtue of this section shall, for the purpose of raising and paying the duty, have all the powers conferred on accountable parties. (4) On a winding up of the company, sub-section (1) of section 530 of the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956), shall have effect as if there were included in clause (a) of that sub-section a reference to any duty payable in respect of assets of the company passing on a death by virtue of section. 17 of this Act, and section 123 of the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956), shall have effect accordingly. (5) The duty payable on the death of the deceased by virtue of section 17 shall be a first charge by way of floating security on the assets which the company had at the de....
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....older of an office or representative of the benefits of the charge or as respects gifts within a certain period or as respects properties in which the deceased had unlimited interests and in respect of such situations where the donor remained in possession and possession did not immediately pass to the donee after the gift, etc. But, as respects property transferred to a controlled company, the only reference is under section 17(1) of the Act in these words : " 17. Property transferred to a controlled company.--- (1) Wherethe deceased has made to a controlled company a transfer of any property (other than an interest limited to cease on his death or property which he transferred in a fiduciary capacity), and any benefits accruing to the deceased from the company accrued to him in the three years ending with his death, the assets of the company shall be deemed for the purposes of estate duty to be included in the property passing on his death to an extent determined in accordance with sub-section (2). " Sub-section (2) of section 17 has limited the extent of the assets of the company in the proportion ascertained by comparing the aggregate amount of the benefits accruing to the de....
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....e assessee-company is a controlled company. It is necessary, however, to take notice of sub-section (5) of section 17 which states, " for the purposes of section 34, the deceased shall be deemed to have had an interest in the property deemed by virtue of this section to be included in the property passing on his death ". Section 34 speaks of the aggregation of property and rates of duty. By virtue of sub-section (5) of section 17, any property transferred by the deceased to a controlled company is included in the group of such properties which are aggregated under section 34 for determining the rate of estate duty. Section 19 of the Act, which has already been quoted by us in full, and which section brings in the group of the accountable person, a controlled company, makes a specific reference to section 53 of the Act, under sub section (8) thereof and excludes the application of sub-sections (1) and (3) thereof in their application to the properties transferred by the deceased to a controlled company. Section 53 speaks of the persons accountable and their duties and liabilities and says in sub-section (1) thereof : " (1) Where any property passes on the death of the deceased,--- ....
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....erty so passing. " There is nothing to read in sub-section (5) of section 53 to confine it to the person accountable under sub-section (1) of section 53 only. It has the effect of acknowledging the liability of a controlled company also as a person accountable. The scheme of the Act under Part VII, which deals with such provisions as to collection of duty and includes section 53 aforementioned, contains some specific provisions which show that in certain cases, trustees may be included in the category of persons accountable and section 55 speaks specifically about every company, to which a transfer of property has been made by the deceased as mentioned in section 17 in these words : " 55. Every person believed to be in possession to deliver statement of particulars of property as required by the Controller.--- Every person accountable for estate duty, every company to which, in the opinion of the Controller, a transfer of property has been made by the deceased as mentioned in section 17, every person who is or was at any time an officer or auditor of such a company, and every person whom the Controller believes to have taken possession of or administered any part of the estate i....
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.... (a) any income of the company, and any periodical payment out of the resources or at the expense of the company, which the deceased received for his own benefit whether directly or indirectly, and any enjoyment in specie of land or other property of the company or of a right thereover which the deceased had for his own benefit whether directly or indirectly ; (b) any such income or payment or enjoyment which the deceased was entitled to receive or have as aforesaid ; and (c) any such income or payment or enjoyment which the deceased could have become entitled to receive or have as aforesaid by an exercise in the three years ending with his death of any power exercisable by him or with his consent; and where the deceased could, by an exercise in the said three years of any such power as aforesaid, have become entitled to receive as aforesaid any payment out of the resources or at the expense of the company not being a periodical payment, but did not in fact receive or become entitled to receive that payment, there shall be treated as a benefit accruing to the deceased from the company interest on that payment at the average rate from the earliest date on which he could have beco....
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....tributed assets, section 36 of the Act shall have effect with the substitution for the reference therein to the time of the death of the deceased of a reference to the time of the distribution, and effect shall be given to the proviso to the said section 36 (which relates to depreciation by reason of the death of the deceased) as at the time of the distribution only, due regard being had to the expectation of life of the deceased at that time. " Rule 11 speaks of limitation on, and prevention of duplication of, charge, rule 12 adjustments as to distributed assets, rule 13 adjustments as to additions to assets and rule 14 about accounting year. Rule 15 says about valuation for estate duty of shares and debentures of certain companies. It is this rule which has fallen for consideration in Kalyani Sundaram's case [1980] 126 ITR 615 (Mad) and which has given rise to the present proceedings. A mere glance at the scheme of the rules will show that valuation for estate duty of shares and debentures of a person having shares or having a claim to debentures of a controlled company cannot be independently worked out under rule 15 without there being a determination of the value of the asset....
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....he Act and in a situation where the deceased had made to it a transfer of any property other than an interest limited to three years on his death or property which he transferred in a fiduciary capacity. It is not disputed before us that (1) the deceased, viz., Anantharamakrishnan, had transferred his shares in some other companies as well as some other properties to the assessee-company, (ii) the assessee-company is a controlled company as defined under section 17(4)(i) of the Act, and (iii) it is a person accountable. We have difficulty in accepting the contention of the Revenue that a controlled company can be a person accountable otherwise than under section 19(1) of the Act. We have taken notice of the definition of " person accountable " under section 2(12A) of the Act which says, " person accountable " or " accountable person " means the person accountable for estate duty within the meaning of the Act, and includes every person in respect of whom any proceeding under the Act has been taken for the assessment of the principal value of the estate of the deceased. Thus, since a controlled company is a person accountable under section 19(1) it satisfies the definition otherwise ....
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.... estate duty was a personal liability of the assessee. The Gujarat High Court has observed on this as follows (at page 356) : " The argument of the Revenue was that the liability for payment of estate duty was a personal liability of the assessee and the moneys were borrowed by her to discharge such personal liability and there was accordingly no connection, direct or indirect, between the borrowing of the moneys and the earning of income from shares received by her under the will of her husband. The purpose of borrowing moneys and payment of interest thereon was, it was contended on behalf of the Revenue, to discharge the personal liability of the assessee for payment of estate duty and this purpose had no connection whatever with the income earned by the assessee on the shares. The analogy of moneys borrowed for payment of income-tax was invoked on behalf of the Revenue and it was urged, relying on two decisions, one a decision of the Bombay High Court in Bai Bhuriben Lallubhai v. CIT [1956] 29 ITR 543 and the other a decision of the Calcutta High Court in Mannalal Ratanlal v. CIT [1965] 58 ITR 84 that, just as payment of interest on moneys borrowed for payment of income-tax is ....
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....tate duty to the State and according to that sub-section, where any property passes on the death of the deceased, (a) every legal representative to whom such property so passes for any beneficial interest in possession or in whom any interest in the property so passing is at any time vested, (b) every trustee, guardian, committee or other person in whom any interest in the property so passing or the management thereof is at any time vested, and (c) every person in whom any interest in the property so passing is vested in possession by alienation or other derivative title, shall be accountable for the whole of the estate duty on the property passing on the death. Section 53, sub-section (5), provides that where two or more persons are accountable for estate duty in respect of any property passing on the death of the deceased, their liability shall be joint and several. But there is a limitation on the liability of every person accountable for estate duty and that limitation is that such person shall not be liable for any duty in excess of the assets of the deceased which are actually received by him or which, but for his own neglect or default, he might have received. The liability ....
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....lity or character from that of an assessee liable to pay income-tax. Learned counsel for the Revenue has drawn our attention to a judgment of the Supreme Court in CIT v. Malayalam Plantations Ltd. [1964] 53 ITR 140. The material facts, in the said case, were as follows : " The assessee was a resident-company incorporated outside India. Most of its shareholders were in the United Kingdom. During the accounting period the company paid estate duty which was payable on the death of certain shareholders who were not domiciled in India. The assessee debited the said amounts to revenue in its accounts in ascertaining the profits and gains for the said year. In another year also, on the death of certain shareholders it paid estate duty and debited the same to revenue. The Income-tax Officer included the said amounts so paid towards estate duty in the profits and gains of the company for the two accounting periods and assessed the company to income-tax on that basis. The appeals preferred by the assessee to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner were dismissed. On further appeal to the Tribunal, it held that the assessee was entitled to debit the said amounts in computing its profits and on....
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....to come to the conclusion whether in England, where the concerned shareholders died, the resident company could recover the amount representing the estate duty paid by it in India from the legal representatives of the deceased shareholders. The Supreme Court in the said case thus proceeded on the assumption that the assessee who, as a statutory agent, paid to the State the estate duty could not recover the same from the legal representatives of the deceased non-resident shareholders and in that situation the company would be out of pocket to the extent it paid the estate duty of the said persons. The court held on that basis that the assessee-company's paying the duty was expenditure incurred by it. The Supreme Court posed then whether the crucial words of section 10(2)(xv) of the 1922 Income-tax Act, " for the purpose of such business " after the 1939 amendment were attracted and held against the assessee on the ground that expenditure incurred for the purpose of the business cannot include sums spent by the assessee as Agent of a third party whether the origin of the agency is voluntary or statutory. In that event, he pays the amount on behalf of another and for the purpose conn....
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.... and liabilities. " and added : " At any rate, it should not be difficult to evolve a principle or frame statutory rules to find out the proportion of the tax which is really incidental to the carrying on of the trade. On the facts of this case it is clear that payment of wealth-tax was really incidental to the carrying on of the assessee-company's trade. " The observation in the separate judgment of Beg J., in this case is quite instructive. It is as follows : " To lay down, as we are doing in this case, that it is the causal connection between payment of tax and that part of net wealth which is used wholly and exclusively for trade and not the mere character or capacity for the possession of which the tax is demanded, which determines whether it is an allowable deduction or not, under section 10(2)(xv) of the Act, seems to me to amount to nothing more than to give effect to the plain and literal meaning of a provision of a taxing statute. There seems no need, in such a clear case, to invoke the aid of the well-established canon of construction that, where a taxing provision is reasonably capable of two equally possible constructions, the one which favours the assessee must b....
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....e sense that it was a genuine borrowing, or not a genuine operation, but only a book transaction of a sort to show that for the payment of estate duty certain loan was incurred by the assesseecompany. In Mrs. Indumati Ratanlal's case [1968] 70 ITR 353, the Gujarat High Court considered whether money borrowed for payment of estate duty was deductible under section 57(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and held as follows : " We must, therefore, reach the conclusion that if moneys were borrowed by the assessee for the purpose of discharging what was purely a personal liability as an accountable person to pay estate duty, interest paid on the borrowed moneys would not be an allowable expenditure under section 57(iii). The question then arises : Does it make any difference if there was a charge on the shares for payment of estate duty and moneys were borrowed by the assessee for the purpose of clearing the charge ? We cannot assent to the broad proposition canvassed on behalf of the assessee that whenever liability is charged on a property, and moneys are borrowed for clearing the charge, interest paid on the borrowed moneys would necessarily be an allowable expenditure in computing th....
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....ed out that the Legislature had deliberately used words of narrower import in granting the deduction under section 57(iii). Section 37(1) provided for deduction of expenditure laid out or expended wholly and exclusively for the purpose of the business or profession in computing the income chargeable under the head " Profits or gains of business or profession ". The language used in section 37(1) was " laid out or expended for the purpose of the business or profession " and not " laid out or expended for the purpose of making or earning such income " as set out in section 57(iii). The words in section 57(iii) being narrower, contended the Revenue, they cannot be given the same wide meaning as the words in section 37(1) and, hence, no deduction of expenditure could be claimed under section 57(iii) unless it was productive of income in the assessment year in question. The Supreme Court observed : " It is true that the language of section 37(1) is a little wider than that of section 57(iii), but we do not see how that can make any difference in the true interpretation of section 57(iii). The language of section 57(iii) is clear and unambiguous and it has to be construed according to i....
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....ges and the court officer concerned and such certificates had been duly countersigned by the Registrar of this court. " The said view is supported by the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Vinod, Kumar Singh v. Banaras Hindu University, AIR 1988 SC 371, in which it is observed that in the absence of exceptional circumstances, a judgment delivered orally in open court must be taken to be final. The Supreme Court quoted an earlier judgment in the case of Surendra Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1954 SC 194, in which case a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court sitting at Lucknow consisting of Kidwai and Bhargava JJ., heard a criminal appeal and on December 11, 1952, reserved judgment. Before it could be delivered Bhargava J., was shifted to Allahabad. While there, he dictated a judgment treating it to be a judgment of both. He signed every page of the judgment as well as at the end but did not put the date. He sent it to Kidwai J., at Lucknow. On December 24, 1962, before the judgment was delivered Bhargava J. passed away. On January 5, 1963, Kidwai J., delivered the judgment of the court. He signed it and dated it. The question as to whether the judgment was a v....
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....t is what constitutes the ' judgment '.... As soon as the judgment is delivered, that becomes the operative pronouncement of the court. The law then provides for the manner in which it is to be authenticated and made certain. The rules regarding this differ but they do not form the essence of the matter and if there is irregularity in carrying them out it is curable. Thus, if a judgment happens not to be signed and is inadvertently acted on and executed, the proceedings consequent on it would be valid because the judgment, if it can be shown to have been validly delivered, would stand good despite defects in the mode of its subsequent authentication. After the judgment has been delivered, provision is made for review. One provision is that it can be freely altered or amended or even changed completely without further formality, except notice to the parties and a rehearing on the point of change should that be necessary, provided it has not been signed. Another is that after signature a review properly so-called would lie in civil cases but none in criminal ; but the review, when it lies, is only permitted on very narrow grounds. . . ." Referring to the above, the Supreme Court ....