JUDGEMENT
Anand Prakash, Accountant Member -
(1.)THESE are departmental appeals. The point which is common to all the years, is as to whether the learned AAC was justified in excluding the sale proceeds of agricultural land valuing Rs. 5,29,375 from the wealth of the assessee HUP.
(2.)The relevant facts may be noted. On 5-2-1969, property of the family situated at Sanai Khoja near Faridabad was settled amongst the family members, whereby the assessee was to get 4/10 share in the said property as his share. The assessee son Vikram Lal was to get 3/10 share and Smt. Brinda Lal was to get the remaining share. A declaratory suit in terms of the said settlement was filed before the Sub-Judge, 1st Class on 19-2-1970 and a consent decree, dated 20-2-1970, was obtained. The said property was later sold on 27-2-1970 and the sale proceed were actually distributed amongst the above three persons in the above proportion. The said persons invested the said sale proceeds in the purchase of the shares of Eicher Tractors in their individual names and they declared the said sale proceeds and the investments therefrom in their individual wealth-tax returns. The same were accepted by the WTO in the course of time. The said persons also declared income arising from the aforesaid investments in their individual income-tax returns and the same were accepted as their incomes by the ITO. On these facts, it was pleaded by the assessee before the learned AAC that there was no justification for including the entire sale proceeds of the land in the total wealth of the family as the partition of the sale proceeds of the land itself was clear evidence of the partition of the original asset, viz., the land.
The above plea was accepted by the learned AAC, while passing his order dated 29-2-1984 in the case of the assessee for asst. year 1975-76. He pointed out inter alia that the aforesaid partition could not be held to be hit by the provisions of Section 20 of the WT Act, 1957 for the said section dealt with the cases of complete partition and not with the cases of partial partition. In the case of partial partition, whatever property was partitioned amongst the coparceners, went out of the family fold and the income therefrom could not be included in the hands of the family. It was includible in the hands of the individual coparceners, who received the property on partition. Therefore, he held that the WTO was not justified in including the entire value of the sale proceeds in the hands of the appellant. Accordingly, he deleted the addition in question.
(3.)IN respect of asst. years 1978-79 and 1979-80, the above position has also been accepted by him. The present appeals of the department are against the above finding of the learned AAC.
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