1979 (10) TMI 24

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....a [1970] 77 ITR 505, the Tribunal was justified in law to include gold ornaments in jewellery ? (2) Whether gold ornaments not studded with jewels are jewellery within the meaning of section 5(1)(viii) of the Wealth-tax Act?" The material facts giving rise to this reference are these: The assessee is an individual of Indore and the assessment year involved is 1968-69. The assessee had originally filed a return declaring his total wealth at Rs. 1,40,054. Subsequently, he filed a revised return declaring his total wealth at Rs. 1,00,754. The assessee made a claim before the WTO for the exemption of jewellery weighing 2,788 grams on the ground that these items of jewellery were gifted by him to his wife before his marriage. As this quest....

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....worked or sewn into any wearing apparel; ...... .. The words " but not including jewellery " in s. 5(1)(viii) of the Act and the Expln. 1 thereto were added by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1971. By the said Finance Act, retrospective operation was given with effect from April 1, 1963, to the words " but not including jewellery ", while Expln. was given prospective effect from April 1, 1972. In CWT v. Arundhati Balkrishna [1970] 77 ITR 505 (SC), the Supreme Court held that the value of all the jewellery intended for the personal use of the assessee stands excluded from the computation of the net wealth of the assessee under s. 5(1)(viii) of the Act as it stood prior to its amendment as aforesaid. It seems that because of the judgment of th....

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....ribunal, Jabalpur and Jaipur Bench, wherein it was held that the ornaments of gold, which are not studded with jewels, are not included in the term " jewellery ". The question which arises for our consideration, therefore, is whether ornaments of gold, which do not contain any jewels, are included in the term " jewellery " without calling in aid the definition thereof, as given in Expln. 1 to s. 5(1)(viii) of the Act, because it is only in case we come to the conclusion that such ornaments are not otherwise included in the word jewellery ", the question may arise whether the definition of the term jewellery " as given in the said Expln. 1 can be taken into consideration or not, in the present case, for interpreting the word jewellery ....