1991 (7) TMI 24

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....l 14, 1952, by virtue of an oral gift made by her in their favour on that day. In the context of this decree, is the assessee, for purposes of computation of the wealth-tax payable by her, to be treated as having been divested of her title in this property with effect from the date of the oral gift or the date of the decree, that is, from April 14, 1952, or May 15, 1975 ? Herein lies the controversy raised. The Wealth-tax Officer included the land and house covered by the civil court decree in the wealth of the assessee for the two assessment years in question, but, on account of this decree, excluded this property for the next assessment year, namely, 1976-77. On appeal, the Appellate Assistant Commissioner agreed with the assessee a....

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....n of the gift deed. Reference was next made to the judgment of the Supreme Court in (Late) Nawab Sir Mir Osman Ali Khan v. CWT [1986] 162 ITR 888, where it was held that, before registration of the sale of immovable property, it must be treated to be that of the vendor ; even though the assessee vendor has a mere " husk of title " and as against the vendee no " reality of title, as against the world he was still the legal owner and the real owner ". These observations were made in dealing with a case where the entire consideration for the sale of immovable property had been received by the vendor and possession thereof had been delivered to the vendee, but the sale had not been registered. Relying upon these two judicial precedents, c....

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....s of the property in suit with effect from April 14, 1952. It was, therefore, argued that, in the face of this decree, the assessee could not but be held to have been divested of her title and ownership over this property since April, 1952. As regards non-registration of the gift by the assessee to her sons, it needs to be borne in mind that such oral gifts of agricultural land were permissible in Punjab prior to April, 1955. Not only this, as held by the Division Bench in Gurudev Kaur v. Mehar Singh, AIR 1989 P & H 324 ; [1990] 1 PLR 334, " a compromise decree regarding the immovable property which is the subject-matter of the dispute in the suit does not require registration even if the title is created in favour of the decree-holder f....