Chakravartti, C.J. - (1.) This is a Reference under Section 57, Stamp Act and came to be made in the following circumstances.
(2.) On 4-7-1949, Messrs. Orr, Dignam & Co., writing as Solicitors for the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, forwarded to the Collector of Customs Calcutta, a draft Power of Attorney, purporting to relate to an intended grant from one Mr. A. P. Benthall in favour of two persons, named D. C. Fairburn and J. J. B. Sutherland. The power conferred by the document was a general power, authorising the attorneys to act jointly and severally in the name of the executant and on his behalf in his individual capacity as also in his capacity as Director, Managing Director, Agent, Managing Agent and Liquidator of any company in which he was or might in future be interested and further, as Executor, Administrator or Trustee or in any capacity whatever as occasion might require. The Solicitors requested the Collector to adjudicate the stamp duty payable on the document under Section 31 of the Act but added that if he did not agree that the duty chargeable was Rs. 10, he should refer the question to the Board of Revenue. In due course the Collector made a reference to the Board and while the matter was pending, the Solicitors addressed a letter to the Board in which they set out their reasons for the view that the duty chargeable was Rs. 10. This time they added that if the Board disagreed with them, it should make reference to the High Court under Section 57 of the Act.
(3.) The decision of the Board was communicated to the Collector in a letter dated 20-1-1950. The Board held that Benthall, in his personal and his representative capacities, was not the same person and since there was also no community of any kind between the different interests in respect of which power was intended to be delegated, delegation of power in respect of the personal interest and such delegation in respect of the fiduciary or representative interests did not constitute one transaction, but were ''distinct matters" within the meaning of Section 5, Stamp Act. Accordingly, the Board held that stamp duty was payable on the document for as many respective capacities as those in which the executant was executing it. The Board declined to make a reference to the High Court because it did not feel any doubt as to the correctness of its decision and also because it thought that since it was not clear in what kind of transactions the agents would be actually called upon to act, the question was an abstract question about which no reference could be made.;