TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1989 (3) TMI 80
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....nder the Income-tax Act ?" The assessee was a member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly during the accounting year relevant to the assessment year 1976-77. For that year, the Income-tax Officer included a sum of Rs. 37,500 to his income which amount was the contribution collected by the admirers of the assessee and handed over to him for the purchase of a car. It was found by him that this payment was made on account of the admiration that the contributors had towards him for the service he rendered to the people of his constituency. The Income-tax Officer held that as this amount was in token of the gratitude for the services done by the assessee to the people of his constituency, the same could not be treated as a gratuitous payment....
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....R 408. It was also submitted for the Revenue that the activities of the assessee in politics by itself could be a vocation and placed reliance on the decision of the Supreme Court in CET v. P. V. G. Raju [1975] 101 ITR 465, wherein it was held that politics could be a profession or occupation within the meaning of section 5(a) of the Expenditure-tax Act, 1958. It was, therefore, submitted that the assessee in this case carried on political activity and as such carried on a profession or calling. At any rate, his activity as a member of the Legislative Assembly must be treated as a vocation. It was further submitted, relying upon section 28(iv) of the Income-tax Act, that even a casual or non-recurring income such as a presentation made t....
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....to a profession or not, but proceed on the basis that such activity is a profession for the purpose of the Act. Even so, as stated earlier, the presentation made to the assessee of the car was not by way of quid pro quo for the services rendered by him to the contributors, but it was on account of his qualities or personal character in rendering services to the constituency in general and on account of the esteem in which he was held that such presentation was made. Therefore, we are, of the view that the presentation to the assessee cannot be linked with the activities carried on by the assessee as a member of the Legislative Assembly or as a politician. The amount presented to the assessee is for the purpose of purchasing a car which mere....
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.... causans for raising contributions by his disciples and the purchase of the car by them for him. That is not the case here at all. The link between the activity carried on by the assessee as a politician and the presentation of the car to him could not be treated as by way of consideration nor could the same be held to be causa causans. Hence, it is futile on the part of the Revenue to rely upon the two decisions referred to above. We are fortified in our view by two decisions, one in CIT v. S. A. Rajamanickam [1984] 149 ITR 85 (Mad), and the other in Dilip Kumar Roy v. CIT [1974] 94 ITR 1 (Bom). In Dilip Kumar Roy's case, the assessee who was a disciple of Aurobindo carried on the activity of singing bhajans and recording them and writi....