MAHADEO PRASAD RAIS Vs. INCOME TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SRI Mahadeo Prasad, the petitioner, challenges the validity of notices issued under Section 148 of the I.T. Act, 1961, for the assessment years 1953-54 to 1963-64.

(2.) MAHADEO Prasad, the petitioner, was being assessed in the status of HUF consisting of himself, his mother, wife and three sons. For the assessment year 1949-50, the petitioner filed a return in his individual capacity on the footing that there had been a total partition under Section 25A of the Indian I.T. Act, 1922. In the alternative, he claimed partial partition of some of the joint family properties. Both these claims were initially negatived and the entire income was assessed in the hands of the HUF. The return filed by the petitioner in his individual capacity was finalised by holding that there was no income assessable in his individual capacity.

(3.) IN the counter-affidavit it has been clarified that in accordance with the final decision of the Tribunal as well as the High Court, various categories of income were excluded from the assessment of the HUF on the footing that there having been a partition in the family, those categories of income were assessable in the hands of the individual members of the family. The impugned notices were hence issued in order to bring those categories of income to tax in the hands of the petitioner in his individual capacity. It was averred that, in view of Section 150 of the I.T. Act, 1961, the notices were not barred by limitation.