COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. DURGAWATI SINGH SMT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AT the instance of the Commissioner of Income-tax, Allahabad, the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal has referred under Section 256 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, the following question of law for the opinion of this court :

(2.) DURING the course of the assessment proceedings for the assessment year aforesaid, the Income-tax Officer found that the assessee was only a benamidar of her husband Sri Vijay Singh, who was the real owner of the business, Friends Automobiles, so long as it was a proprietary business and thereafter it was he who actually was a partner in the firm through his wife, namely, the assessee in this reference. Consequently, the Income-tax Officer held that the entire determined share income of the assessee in the registered firm as well as the income for the period the said business was a proprietary concern during the previous year relevant to the assessment year in dispute, would be clubbed with the income of Vijay Singh and assessed in his hands. However, since a return of income had been filed by the assessee voluntarily, an assessment in her hands was also completed on protective basis.

(3.) BOTH the references were heard together. By a separate judgment of date we have upheld the clubbing of the disputed income in the hands of the assessee's husband (see Vijay Bahadur Singh v. C1T [1998] 232 ITR 934 (All)).