1981 (8) TMI 4

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....e assessment year 1970-71 had escaped assessment within the meaning of section 17 of the Wealth-tax Act and also questioning the proceedings for attachment consequent on such notice, exhibit P-1. The petitioner was a junior member of Kanakathidam tarwad, a Marumakkathayam tarward, which fell within the scope of the Kerala joint Hindu Family (Abolition) Act, 30 of 1976. That Act came into force on December 1, 1976. By the provisions of the Act, the joint family ceased to exist and the properties of the joint family were held, after December 1, 1976, by the members of the family as tenants in common as if on that day there was a partition of the joint family. The petitioner was, when the joint family existed, only a junior member. He was not ....

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.... Act 30 of 1976 operated to put an end to the existence of all joint Hindu families in Kerala. The consequence was that from that day onwards there could be no joint Hindu family in the State. It is not case of the family disrupting by partition. It is a case of statutory extinction of joint families. To provide for the distribution of the coparcenary property, provision is made in section 4(1) that all members of an undivided Hindu family holding coparcenary property on December 1, 1976, shall be deemed to be holding such coparcenary property as tenants-in-common as if a partition had taken place among all the members of that undivided Hindu family. This means that the members became owners of what they would have obtained as their respe....

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....r is issued admittedly after December 1, 1976, and on that day there was no Hindu undivided family in existence. Therefore, there is no question of addressing any adult male member of a joint Hindu family in order to serve a notice intended for the family. Proceedings in respect of the assessment for the year 1970-71 against the Kanakatbidam family cannot be validly taken by issue of a notice upon a person who is one among the 106 tenants-in-common in respect of properties of the family. That and that alone is the status of the petitioner at the moment of service of notice. That does not oblige him under law to act either in discharge of any obligation under the Wealth-tax Act or to meet any obligations of any unit which he is supposed to r....