2023 (7) TMI 350

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.... THE HON'BLE, THE CHIEF JUSTICE) (ORAL) These four appeals involve a common question of law. In short, the issue is whether the ratio decidendi in the judgment reported at (1992) 195 ITR 630 (Gau) (Commissioner of Income-Tax v. Mahari & Sons) would be applicable in these matters. The ancillary issue is whether the dictum in Mahari & Sons still holds good despite apparently contrary judgments of the Supreme Court pronounced in matters pertaining to the interpretation of a taxing statute and the strict interpretation of an exemption clause in a taxing statute. 2. In Mahari & Sons, members of a family, all of them tribals and individually entitled to the benefits under Section 10(26) of the Income-Tax Act, 1961, were engaged in a busines....

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....preted to enlarge the scope thereof and confer benefits on others not specifically intended to be covered by the same. In such regard, the Tribunal has held in the order impugned that when Section 10(26) refers to an individual being a member of a relevant scheduled tribe and the income of such person accruing in one of the notified areas, the benefit under such exemption could not be extended to persons other than individuals who are defined in the statute as such other persons cannot be regarded as individuals within the restricted meaning of that word in Section 10(26) of the Act. 5. In such context, both the Tribunal in the order impugned and the Department in course of the present appeals, have referred to Section 2(31) of the Act a....

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....ire gamut of the discussion possible on the issue. For instance, the Tribunal makes no distinction in the order impugned between a partnership firm with close relatives as partners and any other partnership firm where the partners are unrelated. Despite the recognition of the wide ambit of what can be called family business in Mahari & Sons, the order impugned places reliance only on the fact that close relatives had formed a partnership firm while missing out the applicability of the dictum in Mahari & Sons by virtue of the partners being close relatives. 9. At any rate, none of the Supreme Court judgments referred to in the order impugned by the Tribunal expressly deals with the situation covered by Mahari & Sons. The general dicta per....