MICHAEL A KALLIVAYALIL Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AT the instance of the assesses the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Cochin Bench, has referred the following question for our opinion :

(2.) WE may add that the assessee wanted the following question also to be referred to this court:

(3.) IT is stated in paragraph 6 of the statement of the case that "the Income-tax Officer and the Appellate Assistant Commissioner viewed the several transactions as integral parts of a single venture undertaken by the assessee and which venture resulted in the taxable surplus of Rs. 1,70,175". The Tribunal too treated the various transactions as part of a single venture. This is clear from the statement of the case as well as from the order of the Tribunal. Paragraph 13 of the statement says "that the chain of facts starting from the acquisition of shares in Murphy Estates Ltd., the purchase of Yendayar estate, the acquisition of shares in Motor Transport Co. Ltd. (all made with the help of borrowings) and the disposal of the Elangad estate to Motor Transport Co. within about one year of acquisition went to show that the transactions in question were an adventure in the nature of trade". We think this is the correct approach. And this is the view taken by the Supreme Court in G. Venkataswami Naidu & Co. v. Commissioner of Income-tax, 1959 35 ITR 594. The head-note in the report correctly depicts the dicta in the judgment and we extract a part of it: