Chakravartti, J. - (1.) The question involved in this Reference under Section 63(1) of the Bengal Agricultural Income-Tax Act relates to three sums of money which, according to the contention of the Respondent Commr. & the finding of the Appellate Tribunal, are agricultural income of the assessee but according to the assessee himself, not income at all. For reasons presently to be stated he has not sought to argue further that even if the sums concerned be income receipts, they are still not agricultural income within the meaning of Section 2(1) of the Act.
(2.) Although there is a single reference, it covers three assessments made for three consecutive assessment years, viz. 1944-45, 1945-46 and 1948-47. As the monies received by the assessee in the three relevant accounting years were derived from transactions of an identical character, a common question of law has been referred, although the amounts involved naturally differ.
(3.) The facts are as follows. The assessee, the Maharaja of Dharbhanga, is one of the bigger landlords of the country and among his possessions is a tract of forest land extending over 50 square miles and grown mostly with sal trees. In respect of each of the three years mentioned above, the Maharaja filed a return of his agricultural income in this Province, but in none of them did he include any income derived from forest lands. The Income-tax Officer, however, discovered that in each of the three years the Maharaja had collected a fairly substantial amount by disposing of sal trees, standing on one part or another of the forest tract and acting on the view that the receipts constituted agricultural income he included them in the appropriate assessments, after allowing certain deductions. The sums so brought under assessment were Rs. 17,719/4/ as for the assessment year 1944-45, Rs. 4,200 for 1945-46 and Rs. 17,032/2 as for 1946-47. Before the Income-tax Officer, the assessee objected to the inclusion of these sums in his assessable income and after the assessments had been made, he appealed successively to the Appellate Assistant. Commissioner and the Appellate Tribunal, but without success. He then applied for a reference to this Court of a question of law formulated by him, but the Appellate Tribunal, although it made the present reference, altered the form of the question. While the assessee required the Tribunal only to ask whether the sums concerned were capital receipts, the Tribunal re-framed the question in the widest possible form and has asked this Court to say whether the sums can be treated as agricultural income, assessable under the Bengal Act. The question actually referred is as follows: "Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case and upon a true construction of the Ekrarnamas (agreements), the money received by the assessee on account of sale of jungle woods in his zemindary can be treated as agricultural income, assessable under the Bengal Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1944?";