PRATAP PRESS Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE following question has been referred to us under section 66 (1) of the Indian Income-Act, 1922, by the Appellate Tribunal :

(2.) THE facts stated by the Appellate Tribunal are as follows : Sheo Narain Misra, Son of Pandit Sheo Dhar Misra, and Ganesh Shanker Vidhyarthi, son of B. Jai Narain, started a press named Pratap Press and a paper named Pratap. By a deed dated March 15, 1919, the aforesaid persons created a trust in respect of the Pratap Press and the weekly paper Pratap. A copy of the deed, annexure B, is a part of the statement of the case as also the Pratap policy as set out in the first issue of the Pratap, annexure C. Under the trust deed the trustees nominated are, apart from the two founders of the press and the paper named aforesaid, Sri Maithali Saran Gupta in respect of whom this court may take cognizance that he is a celebrated poet, Sri Jawaharlal Rohtagi and Sri Phool Chand. THEy are to be life members whose duty is to continue the publication of the paper. Clause (2) of the trust deed is important and runs as follows :

(3.) THE earliest case that was cited before us was the case of Trustees of the Sir G. B. Hunter (1922) C Trust v. Commissioner of Inland Revenue. That was a case where the trust deed provided that the net income of the trust should be paid or applied to the benefit of the Simplified Spelling Society. THE object of the society was to recommend and to further the general use of simpler spellings of English words than those currently in use and to engage in propaganda to influence public opinion in favour of its object and to gain from them the approval of public education authorities. It was claimed on behalf of the assessee that the purposes for which the society was established were charitable either as being educational or as being beneficial to the community. But it was held that the trust was not established for a charitable purpose. It was observed that the object of the society were merely to make spelling more simple. But the purpose was nowhere near either of the expressed categories mentioned by Lord Macnaghten in the well know judgment of Commissioners for Special Purposes of the Income Tax v. John Frederick Pemsel, or within the classes of cases which stand enumerated in the statute of Elizabeth.