HAJEE ABDUL SATTAR SAIT Vs. CONTROLLER OF ESTATE DUTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this reference under section 64(1) of the Estate Duty Act, 1953, made at the instance of the assessee by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the question referred is :

(2.) THE deceased mentioned in the question was one Mohammed Hussain Sait, who died on the 22nd of March, 1955. THE value of Rs. 12,00,000 and odd mentioned above is the value determined for what the department considered to be the entire property held by the deceased, apparently upon the footing that it was his exclusive separate property held by him exclusively which devolved in its entirety upon his heirs by the rules of Mohammadan law relating to succession. THE accountable persons were his two sons, Abdulla Sait and Sattar Sait, who, according to the department, would be some among the heirs of the deceased.

(3.) THE original assessing authority, viz., the Deputy Controller of Estate Duty, Madras, totally rejected all the contentions. So far as the evidence is concerned, he expressed the opinion that at the highest the evidence proved nothing more than mere assertions by the parties and the sustainability or otherwise of the claims involved in the said assertions had never been the subject of adjudication or decision by any court. In regard to the decision of the Madras High Court cited above, the officer was of the opinion that it was not quite clear on the point or not clearly in favour of the case sought to be made by the accountable persons. He referred to certain decisions of the Bombay High Court, relating to Cutchi Memons of Bombay and thought that the opinion of the Bombay High Court, which ultimately got crystallised in the case of Haji Oosman Haji Ismail v. Harroon Saleh Mohamed, represent the correct legal position and should be applied, especially because the majority of the Cutchi Memons are to be found in Bombay and what is true of them or applicable to them may with reasonable certainty be applied to Cutchi Memons resident in other parts of India also. THE said opinion of the Bombay High Court is to the effect that the application of the rules of Hindu law of customs to the Cutchi Memons is limited to the rules of inheritance and succession and does not extent to other rules relating to the Hindus, and that therefore a sons of a Cutchi Memon cannot be said to have acquired an interest by birth in the ancestral property of his father.