JADUNANDAN SAHU DEOKISANRAM Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are two references to this Court under Section 66(2) of the Income Tax Act by the Income-tax Tribunal, this Court having required the Tribunal to state a case. A joint statement has been made, and only a single question has been referred, as both references relate to the same matter, one being with regard to the assessment of income-tax and the other the assessment of excess profits tax.

(2.) THE assessee is an undivided Hindu family, and the question which has been referred is whether there is any legal evidence to support the finding of the Tribunal that Rs. 49,300 was part of the assessees income during the accounting year. THE accounting period in question is from the 11th of November, 1939, to the 30th October, 1940. THE assessee has business and property, the business including two rice mills and a grain gola, trading in clarified butter and timber, and there is also a pawn brooking business.

(3.) COUPLED with the extraordinarily low profits shown were the facts that no accounts at all had been conveniently kept regarding this home chest, and no explanation was furnished of the real source of these sums drawn from the home chest, and indeed, this home chest seems to have partaken of the nature of the widows miraculous cruse of oil which was never exhausted, or the purse of Fortunates which was always full. The Income-tax authorities were surely entitled to use this as material in connection with the other materials before them from which to draw a conclusion. As I have already stated, it is not for us to express any opinion whether the conclusion they did draw was upon these materials, in fact justified.