GOSWAMI MAHARAJ RANCHHODRAIJI GOVINDLALJI Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS reference relates to two assessment years 1957 -1958 and 1958 -1959 and the dispute is as regard two sums of Rs. 14,923, and Rs. 18,966 received by the assessee as and by way of the 'Gurubhets' during the two relative previous years respectively and included in his assessments for these two years.

(2.) THE assessee is one of the direct descendants of Shri Vallabhacharya who founded the Vallabh Sampradaya or what is otherwise known as Punshtimarg and which has considerable following in this part of the country as such. He is one of the Sampradaya, has several properties and resides at Porbandar. Unlike the heads of some other sects, he leads the life of a Grahastha, has a wife, a son and three daughters. As found by the Income -tax Officer, the office he holds is a hereditary one and he would, therefore, be succeeded by his son or sons, as the case may be. At Porbandar, he keeps and maintains an idol of Lord Krishna in his house. As a result of the decision in Maharaj Shri Govindlalji Ranchhodlalji v. Commissioner of Income -tax, it is now beyond the pale of any controversy that offerings made by the devotes of this sampradaya at from time to time are made not to the idol but to the assessee and these offerings are generally made at the time of prayers. As the head of the Sampradaya at Porbandar and by virtue of the office he holds, he has to perform certain duties and obligations and he is looked upon as Guru by his followers to whom he gives Samarpan and Nivedan Mantras. No one can in fact be said to be his flowers unless he has been initiated by the assessee, and such initiation ceremony consists in the assessed reciting certain Mantras.

(3.) UNTIL the assessment years 1956 -57, the assessee was being assessed in respect of all his income, including the income by way of 'Gurubhets' in the statues of an individual, Even in his returns for the assessments year 1957 -1958, he had first claimed to be assessed in the statues of an individual. By his letter dated September 8, 1958, addressed to the Income -tax Officer, Porbandar Circle, the assessee asserted that, though in these returns he had shown his status as an individual, his status should be taken to be that of a Hindu undivided family for the reasons therein set out. The reasons stated by him in that were as follows :