MOOKERJEE, J. - (1.) : This is a reference under s. 63(1) of the Bengal Agricultural IT Act, 1944. For the asst. yr. 1944-45 the assessee submitted a return for the accounting period 1350 B. S. including therein various items of agricultural income. While going through the books of accounts the ITO traced from the ledger, produced by the assessee, that receipts from forest by sale of Sal trees, amounting to Rs. 90,220-1-0, had not been included by the assessee in the return. The taxing officer considered this item to be assessable to agricultural income-tax and made the assessment accordingly. On an appeal by the assessee before the AAC this assessment was upheld as being " agricultural income from rent and revenue. " The assessee preferred an appeal before the Tribunal and by an order dt. 9th Oct., 1947, it was held that the income from forest in this particular case was not agricultural income, and therefore, not assessable under the Agricultural IT Act. On an application by the Commr. of Agrl. IT this reference has been made for determining the question :- " Whether, on the facts and circumstances of the case, the sum of Rs. 90,220-1-0 derived from the sale of Sal trees in the forests of the assessee can be treated as agricultural income within the meaning of s. 2 of the Bengal Agricultural IT Act, 1944. "
(2.) AGRICULTURAL income is defined in s. 2(1) of the Bengal AGRICULTURAL IT Act. The relevant portion of the section which requires consideration in the present case is in the following terms :- " 2. (1) ' agricultural income ' means-- (a) any rent or revenue derived from land which is used for agricultural purposes, and is either assessed to land revenue in British India or subject to a rate assessed and collected by officers of the Crown as such ; (b) any income derived from such land by-- (i) agriculture, or (ii) the performance by a cultivator or receiver of rent-in-kind of any process ordinarily employed by a cultivator or receiver of rent-in-kind to render the produce raised or received by him fit to be taken to market, or (iii) the sale by a cultivator or receiver of rent-in-kind of the produce raised or received by him, in respect of which no process has been performed other than a process of the nature described in item (ii). " It is an admitted case that the land on which the forest stands is assessed to land-revenue. The only question to be considered is whether the income from the sale of the Sal trees standing on such land is either " rent or revenue derived from land which is used for agricultural purposes " or, is income derived from such land by agriculture or by the performance of any process ordinarily employed by a cultivator "to render the produce raised or received by him fit to be taken to market." The word "agriculture" is not defined in this Act. Etymologically, the word is derived from agarfield, culture-cultivation, including harvesting, managing and farming.
(3.) ACCORDING to Murray in the Oxford Dictionary "agriculture" means "the science or art of cultivating soil including the allied pursuit of gathering the crop and rearing live stock, tillage, husbandry, farming in the widest sense." The Webster's Dictionary meaning of "agriculture" is "farming, horticulture, forestry, butter and cheese making, etc." In Bouvier's Law Dictionary quoting the Standard Dictionary "agriculture" is defined as "the cultivation of soil for food products or other useful or valuable growth of the field or garden, tillage, husbandry ; also by extension, farming including any industry practised by a cultivator of the soil in connection with such cultivation, as breeding and rearing of stock, dairying, etc., the science that treats of the cultivation of the soil.";