GULABRAI HANUMANBOX Vs. COMMISSIONER OF WEALTH TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON the prayer of the assessee, the following four questions have been referred to this Court for opinion under S. 27(1) of the WT Act, 1957, for short "the Act". The said questions are :

(2.) IT may be mentioned that the assessee prayed for referring one more question, which was rejected by the Tribunal. The facts are as follows : The present reference relates to the asst. year 1975 -76. The WTO noted that the assessee owned movable and immovable properties located in Assam and Rajasthan and there is one self -occupied house property at Calcutta which is jointly owned by the two HUFs, viz., the assessee (Gulabrai Hanumanbox) and Keshoram Radheshyam, having equal shares. In the report of the valuer dt. 28th Oct., 1972, the value of the Calcutta property was shown as Rs. 3,63,500 being the half share of the assessee. This was adopted for the asst. year 1972 -73. The contention of the assessee was that since the building is self -acquired, the value of the same should be frozen at the value determined as on 31st March, 1972, relevant to the asst. year 1972 -73 in view of the provisions of s. 7(4) of the Act. There is no dispute that the building was constructed and occupied in November, 1971. The WTO, however, declined to accept the contention of the assessee to freeze the valuation under S. 7(4) of the Act as, according to him, this section came into force w.e.f. 1st April, 1976, as per the Finance Act, 1976. The WTO obtained report from the Departmental Valuer and a copy of this was forwarded to the assessee and the assessee objected to the adoption of the value as determined by the Departmental Valuer in view of the provisions of S. 7(4) of the WT Act. The Departmental Valuer valued the property at Rs. 16,21,100 and the share of the assessee was determined at Rs. 8,10,550 being 50 per cent of the total value. As the assessing authority rejected the contention of the assessee, appeals were filed and both the appeals were rejected by the AAC and the Tribunal respectively. Hence, the present reference. As all the questions referred to us have to be examined in the light of S. 7 of the Act, we quote below the said section :

(3.) THE learned author at p. 222 has observed -"The presumption against retrospective construction has no application to enactments which affect only the procedure and practice of the Courts. No person has a vested right in any course of procedure, but only the right of prosecution or defence in the manner prescribed for the time being, by or for the Court in which he sues, and if an Act of Parliament alters the mode of procedure, he can only proceed according to the altered mode". The, learned author has also quoted the observation in Gardner vs. Lucas (1878) 3 AC 582 (HL), in which, according to Lord Blackburn -"Alterations in the form of procedure are always retrospective, unless there is some good reason or other why they should not be".