GOSWAMI MAHARAJ GOVINDRAIJI RANCHHODLALJI MAHARAJ Vs. COMMISSIONER INCOME TAX GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This reference relates to two assessment years 1957 1958 and 1958-1959 and the dispute is as regards two sums of Rs. 14 923 and Rs. 18 666 received by the assessee as and by way of gurubhets during the two relative previous years respectively and included in his assessment 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 Pushtimarg and which has considerable following in this part of the country. He is as such one of the heads 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 Ahmedabad 34 I. T. R. 92 it is now beyond the pale of any controversy that offerings made by the devotees of this Sampradaya 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 whom he gives Samarpan and Nivedan Mantras. No one can in fact be said to be his follower unless he has been initiated by the assessee and such initiation ceremony consists in the assessee reciting certain Mantras.

(3.) At one time the assessee contended that the offerings known as gurubhets were made to him out of personal regard that his followers have for him and not as the head of the Sampradaya at Porbandar. That controversy as we have observed is now set at rest by the aforesaid decision reported in 34 I. T. R. 92 by the High Court of Bombay whereby it is concluded that these offerings are made to him not out of personal regard for him as a particular individual but because of his being the head of the sect and as the holder of the office. There is therefore no longer any dispute regarding the taxability of these amounts received by the assessee as gurubhets.