PUNJA B T R Vs. COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURAL INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A certain Thimmappa Punja who was a resident of the District of Coorg and who died on November 2, 1956, made a will on December 19, 1953. He divided his properties by that will into ten shares. To his two sons he gave 2 1/2 shares each, to his wife and two daughters one share each, and the remaining two shares he disposed of for charity. There was a direction in the will that the properties shall be managed in a particular way and that, so long as that management continued, the income from the properties should be divided into ten equal shares. Out of that income the two sons became entitled two shares each, the testator's wife and two daughters became entitled to a share each, his two sons-in-law became entitled to a half share each, on share had to be applied for charity, and the remaining one share had to be the source of a reserve fund to be utilised for the expenses of management.

(2.) AFTER the death of the testator, the Agricultural Income-tax Officer assessed the income of the estate left by him under the Mysore Agricultural Income-tax Act. By then, one of the sons of testator had been, under an agreement reached between the legatees, appointed manager to manage the properties. This was recorded in an agreement which was executed on March 12, 1957.

(3.) IN this writ petition, which is presented by the tastator's son, who is now in management of the properties, the challenge is to the assessments made in that way. We are asked to say that the testator's widow, his two sons and him two daughters hold the property of the testator as tenants-in-common, and that it was not therefore possible for the INcome-tax Officer to assess the income as income derived by an association of individuals.