COMMISSIONER OF GIFT TAX Vs. BANDLAMUDI SUBBAIAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS tax case raises questions under the Gift-tax Act and the general Hindu law. The revenue seeks reference of the two following questions to this court:

(2.) THE assessment year we are concerned with is 1971-72. THEre is no dispute that up to 1971, there was an undivided joint family consisting of the father, sons and six daughters, three of whom had been married earlier. In the partition deed of 1971, while dividing the properties, the father and the sons made provision not only for the three married daughters but also for the three unmarried daughters. Agricultural lands of the value of Rs. 29,400 were allotted to the three married daughters and agricultural lands of the value of Rs. 30,625 were allotted to the three unmarried daughters.

(3.) THE second question refers to the properties allotted to unmarried daughters. Undoubtedly, a Hindu joint family has an obligation to maintain and get an unmarried daughter married. That right of the unmarried daughter to be maintained and to get married and the obligation of the family to do this may be inchoate, in the sense, that these rights and obligations do not attach to any specific property. But there is an undoubted right under the Hindu law of an unmarried daughter to be maintained and to get married and the corresponding obligation of the Hindu family to discharge these obligations cannot, therefore, be under any doubt. Once under a partition deed or a family settlement or a gift or other instrument certain properties are set apart for the maintenance and marriage of the unmarried daughters, then the rights of the unmarried daughters and the corresponding obligations of the family gain a coherent and concrete form. THEy immediately attach to the property thus allotted under the instrument. Since the property is given to the unmarried daughter in recognition of her right, in discharge of the obligation of the family, by no stretch of imagination it could be treated as a gift.