Ranganath Misra, J. - (1.) This appeal is by special leave and is directed against the judgment of the Bombay-High Court dated 16-7-1974 on a reference made under S. 66(l) of the Income Tax Act, 1922. The year of assessment is 1951-52 corresponding to the accounting year ending 31-3-1951. The question referred by the Tribunal to the High Court at the instance of the Revenue was:"Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the- case, the assessee company could not be held to be a company in which the public were substantially interested within the meaning of Explanation to section 23A(l) by reason of the fact that the shares of the company carrying not less than twenty-five per cent of its voting power were not, in fact, freely transferable by holders to other members of the public for a large part of the previous year even though they were freely transferable as at the end of the previous year -
(2.) Initially the company was incorporated as a private limited company at Jaipur on 24-12-1942 and was known as Messrs Rajputana Investment Company Private Limited. Under Articles 4, 81 and 82 of the Articles of Association of the company there was restriction on the transfer of the shares of the Company by the shareholders to other members of the public. These articles were deleted at an extraordinary general meeting of the Company held on 26th March, 1951, and following the deletion, the restriction on transfer of shares was removed. So was the limit on number of shareholders. On the basis of the amendment the assessee claimed relief under S. 23A(l) of the 1922 Act by pleading that all the statutory requirements were satisfied. The Income-tax Officer refused to accept the stand of the assessee on the ground that while the Explanation contained in S. 23A(l) of the Act required that in course of the previous year the shares were freely transferable by the holders to other members of the public, the company came to satisfy the requirement only for four or five days of the year. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner adopted the same view whereupon the assessee appealed to the Tribunal. The Tribunal accepted the stand of the assessee and allowed the appeal. whereupon at the instance of the Revenue the aforesaid question was referred and the case was stated to the High Court under S. 66(l) of the 22 Act. The High Court found for the assessee and against the Revenue. That has led to the present appeal by special leave.
(3.) As pointed out above, the short point for consideration in this appeal is as to whether the assessee satisfied the requirements of the Explanation to S. 23A(l) of the Act so as to be entitled to the tax benefit. This Court pointed out in the case of CIT.v. Afco (P) Ltd. (1963) 48 TTR 76: "Section 23A was enacted to prevent evasion of liability to pay super-tax by shareholders of certain classes of companies taking advantage of the disparity between the rates of super-tax payable by individuals and by the companies. The rates of super-tax applicable to companies being lower than the highest rates applicable to individual assessees, to prevent individual assessees from avoiding the higher incidence of super-tax by the expedient of transferring to companies the sources of their income, and thereby securing instead of dividends the benefit of the profits of the company the Legislature by Act XXI of 1930, as modified by Act VII of 1939, enacted a special provision in S. 23A investing the Income-tax Officer with power, in certain contingencies prescribed in the section to order that the undistributed balance of the assessable income reduced by the amount of taxes and the dividends shall be deemed to have been distributed at the date of the general meeting." The Explanation provided: "For the purpose of this sub-section,- a company shall be deemed to be a company in which the public are substantially interested if shares of the company (not being shares entitled to a fixed rate of dividend, whether with or without a further right to participate in profits) carrying not less than twenty-five per cent of the voting power have been allotted unconditionally to, or acquired unconditionally by, and are at the end of the previous year beneficially held by, the public (hot including a company to which the provisions of this sub-section apply) and if any such shares have in the course of such previous year been the subject of dealings in any stock exchange in the taxable territories or are in fact freely transferable by the holders to other members of the public.";