MUKAT BEHARILAL BHARGAVA Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a reference by the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal (Delhi Bench C) under section 66(1) of the Income-tax Act.

(2.) THE question which has been referred to us is as follows :

(3.) THEIR Lordships will in the present case assume that sons of the assessee have a right to be maintained by him, that this right arises from the fact the he is present holder of the impartible estate, and that the right is a right to be maintained out of the current income there if in such sense that it could be enforced against the assessee in default by the courts in India giving them a charge upon the property or a sufficient part of it. Even so, it is not true in fact or in law to say that the income from the estate is received by the assessee as the income of a joint Hindu family receivable by the Karta, nor is it received by him on behalf of himself and his sons, but on his own baccount as the holder by single heir succession of the impartible estate. The presently existing right of the sons is to be paid a suitable maintenance or to have it provided for them in the ordinary course of Hindu family life. The Hindu law is familiar not only with persons such as wives, unmarried daughters and minor children for whose maintenance a Hindu has a personal liability whether he has any property or none, but also with cases in which the liability arises by reason of inheritance of property and is a liability to provide maintenance out of such property. It applies to persons whom the late owner was bound to maintain. The fact that the sons right to maintenance arises out of the fathers possession of impartible estate and is a right to be maintained out of the estate do not make it a right of a unique or even exceptional character or involve the consequence at Hindu law that income of the estate is not the fathers income.