NATHURAM SRINANDANLAL Vs. COMMISSIONER OF WEALTH TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) UNDER section 27 (1) of the Wealth -tax Act, 1957, (XXVII of 1957) the Income -tax Appellate Tribunal. Bombay, has, at the instance of the assessee, referred to this Court for its opinion, the following question of law:

(2.) WHEN the case was stated, the Tribunal presumably acted on the dictum laid down by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Raleigh Investment Co. Ltd Vs. Governor General in Council (1947) LR 74 IA 50, namely, the Act contained effective machinery for the review of the assessment on grounds of law including the question whether a provision of the Act was ultra vires. Their Lordships of the Supreme Court have, however, departed from that view in K. S. Venkatranga Vs. State of Madras (1966) 60 ITR 112. The law now is that a tribunal, which is a creature of a statute, cannot question the vires of the provisions under which it functions. We, therefore, hold the reference to be incompetent. Nevertheless, we would like to state our answer to the questions referred as the parties may like to pursue the matter further.

(3.) ON the second aspect, learned counsel appearing for the assessee contends that the charging section suffers from the vice of discrimination as it discriminates between a group of persons constituting themselves a Hindu undivided family by imposing on them a higher burden of tax by treating them as a unit of taxation and other groups of persons inviting a lower incidence of tax, and for this submission reliance is placed on a decision of the Kerala High Court in Khan Bahadur C. K. Mammed Keyi Vs. Wealth tax Officer, Calicut (1962) 44 ITR 277. We are unable to accept the contention.