1930 (1) TMI 19

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.... Income Tax Officer any power to call for evidence of dissolution of the joint family for the purpose of registration under Section 2(14) over and above the documentary evidence adduced by the partnership deed in support of the application in Form 1 under Rule 2. 2. Now it is abundantly clear that the assessees in this case carry on a certain business. The Income Tax Officer says that this business has been assessed on the footing that the persons who carry it on are members of a Hindu undivided family in business as such. It seems there is the grandfather who is the senior member and there are grandsons who are minors and the business has been treated in that way until the time with which we are now concerned. 3. It appears that, aft....

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.... Tax Officer required the assessees to produce evidence of the bona fides of this document; some evidence to show that the family had been dissolved; some evidence to show that the business which had formerly bean treated as a joint family business had really and, in fact, ceased to be so and no such evidence was forthcoming. 5. The question which the Income Tax Officer was asked to refer to us was whether any set of people purporting to be a firm as described by Clause (14), Section 2, were not entitled to get themselves registered as a registered firm under the rules, however much the document upon which they relied was either forged on the one hand or intended not to be acted upon or otherwise a pure unreality. It is said that the rul....

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.... should be in the affirmative. The assessees must pay the costs of this reference. Charu Chander Ghose, J. 7. I agree. P.L. Buckland, J. 8. I agree and desire to add only a few observations. The first question, stated broadly, appears to be whether the Income Tax Officer has power to enquire whether a person or a body of persons is or are what he or they represent themselves to be for the purpose of taking advantage of a provision of the Act. If the question is so stated, it becomes clear that the Income tax Officer must have power to make the enquiries necessary to satisfy himself as to the person or persons with whom he is asked to deal. If the reply to the first question propounded is in the affirmative, it would, in my opini....