COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. P S CHELLADURAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS income-tax case relates to a self-employed social worker. His is an interesting story. He bears the name of Chelladurai. He was born into the Christian faith. During his early period of earning years, he was a clerical employee in the P & T Dept. in Madras. One day in 1963, this individual came in contact with a visiting American Missionary. From then on, according to the assessee himself, he took to social work among poor Christian brethren in the City of Madras and its suburbs.

(2.) IN the beginning, he utilised the spare time which the post office allowed him in order to make his rounds in the slums, in the huts, in the churches and other places where his work led him. IN course of time, this kind of endeavour became so demanding and so rewarding that he applied for a long leave of absence from service. He became, in short, a full-time social worker even before he quit his postal job finally, which was some time in 1973. His particular line of social work lay in running orphanages, Sunday schools and Bible classes.

(3.) THE details of his social work also did not escape the attention of the officer. Particularly interesting to that official was the way of life of the assessee and his considerable family, not to speak of the standards of comfort they were maintaining for themselves during recent yearsTHE attention and interest evinced by the I.T. Dept. stirred the assessee into filing returns before the ITO for 1969-70 and 1970-71, but only to display in Part III of the returns a sum of money representing a part of the foreign remittances deposited in the banks in the relevant previous years. No account statements accompanied the returns just a figure in Part III in each year's return, as who should say, "This is not my income I return it only for fear of consequences for not returning it" *. He engaged expert professional help and argued before the ITO that he had no income to be taxed and what he was doing was social work as the mission of his life. He admitted receipt of remittances from abroad, but insisted that he got no salary or remuneration for all his trouble.