PRATAP NARAIN Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Income-tax Appellate Tribunal has referred two questions to this court for decision :

(2.) THE reference relates to the assessment year 1957-58 for which the assessee was assessed in the status of an individual.

(3.) IT seems to us that it is now well settled, that when Hindu undivided family property is partitioned between the members of a Hindu undivided family, and a share is obtained on such partition by a coparcener, it is ancestral property as regards his male issue. They take an interest in it by birth, whether they are in existence at the time of partition or are born subsequently. We are of opinion that it is not correct to say that the share of the property, upon partition, constitutes the separate property of the coparcener and that it is only subsequently when a son is born that the property becomes ancestral property or Hindu undivided family property. The birth of the son does not alter the nature of the property. The property all along continues to be coparcener belong to that son, and the enlarged rights hitherto enjoyed by the sole coparcener are now abridged within their normal compass. In Attorney-General v. Arunachalam Chettiar (No. 2), the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council expounded the law relating to the nature of joint family property in the hands of a single coparcener as follows :