BITHAL DAS Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are six applications under Section 24 (4), U. P. Agricultural Income -tax Act arising out of the refusal of the Revision Board to state a case for the opinion of this Court. These six applications are based on the same facts and purport to raise common questions of law.

(2.) ONE Sri Mahadeo Prasad was in the year 1355 Fasli the manager of a joint Hindu family consisting of himself, his wife, his widowed mother and his three sons, and in that year he was assessed to Agricultural Income -tax as the head of the family. In the following year Sri Mahadeo Prasad filed an application before the Collector, Gorakhpur, who was the assessing authority, alleging that a separation had taken place in the family and that the shares of the members had been declared by a decree of the Civil Court dated 12 -12 -1948. The Collector Was satisfied that there had been a disruption of the joint family, and by an order dated 15 -10 -1949, he transferred the case to the Assistant Collector directing him to assess separately each of the six members of the family, The Assistant Collector - did so on 25 -10 -1949, when he passed a separate assessment order in respect of each of the six members of the family.

(3.) THE applications in revision were resisted by the assessees on two grounds: In the first place they contended that the applications were unduly delayed and consequently not maintainable. That objection was overruled by the Board on the two -fold ground that the Act did not pre - . scribe any period within which an application for revision must be filed and because the Board had ignored the question of limitation in several ap - plications which were presented on behalf of the assessees having regard to the fact that the Act was new and the assessees were not fully convex -sant with the procedure;