TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1985 (6) TMI 26
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....y, adopted the status of the assessee as non-resident/not citizen of India. As a consequence, he granted a rebate of wealth-tax at 50% of the total wealth-tax payable by the assessee in accordance with the provision contained in rule 3 of Part If of the Schedule appended to the W.T. Act. On realising his mistake, the WTO proceeded to rectify his orders by adopting the status of the assessee as a resident but not ordinarily resident. Before making the rectification orders for the respective years, the WTO issued a show-cause notice to the assessee who in his reply accepted the fact pertaining to his status that he was a resident but not ordinarily resident/not a citizen of India, and that he had no objection against the rectification in resp....
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....d in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal correctly interpreted the provisions of rule 3 of Part If of the Schedule appended to the Wealth-tax Act ? 3. Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the question as regards status being a debatable one, the Tribunal was justified in upholding the orders of the lower authorities passed under section 35 of the Wealth-tax Act ? The same contentions were urged before us by the learned advocate for the applicant. Firstly, he submitted that so far as rule 3 is concerned, there is no legislative dictionary as we find in s. 6 of the I.T. Act and, therefore, the wealth-tax authorities, and for that matter the Tribunal, could not have imported the legislative dictionary of th....
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.... there is no legislative dictionary. The reason for examining the question on the assumption that there is a legislative dictionary is that we have got to give some meaning to the word " non-resident " in rule 3 and also because the assessee has claimed status as described in the I.T. Act. It is no doubt true that the Legislature has, in its infinite wisdom, Provided legislative dictionary for the deemed purposes under s. 5 as well as s. 6 of the I.T. Act. It is equally true that there is no definition of these terms in the W.T. Act, nor have we got any general clause in the definition section so as to indicate that the words and expressions which are used in the W.T. Act, in the absence of their definitions, are to be construed and given t....
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....t in India provided the words, " resident " and " non-resident " are to be construed in the way in which they are understood in the popular sense. Either way, the applicant is not entitled to successfully claim the benefit of the rebate of 50% of the tax under rule 3. The learned advocate for the applicant, therefore, urged that in any case these are debatable questions and the wealth-tax authorities could not have invoked the rectification jurisdiction when the questions are highly debatable. We are afraid that this contention, though it appears to be attractive, is on close scrutiny not well-founded. The obvious reason is that the withdrawal of the rebate already granted is a consequence flowing from the admission about the status and it ....