Judgment:
Chettur Sankaran Nair, J.
1. The petitioner, an assessee under the Estate Duty Act, 1953, seeks to quash exhibits P-22 and P-26. By the former, the Revenue declined to accept shares offered by the petitioner in settlement of his tax liability and, by the latter, it fixed Rs. 130 as the value of a share in the event of a decision to accept shares in lieu of tax liability.
2. The petitioner is the accountable person in whose hands the estate of the deceased person is sought to be assessed to estate duty. The estate was valued at Rs. 13,16,025 and the duty payable was assessed at Rs. 2,35,520 under exhibit P-1. Thereafter, the petitioner made an application under Section 52 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953, requesting that shares of Messrs. Sait Nagjee Purushotham and Co., held by him may be accepted and applied towards his liabilities under the Act.
3. Section 52 provides for payment of duty by transfer of property if the Central Government agreed to such a course. The Central Board of Direct Taxes before whom exhibit P-2 application was made forwarded it to the Controller of Estate Duty, Kerala, the second respondent, and informed the petitioner that he may make future correspondence with that authority. By exhibit P-22, the said authority informed the petitioner that it was not possible to accept the 200 shares and apply them against the duty payable by him. Again, there was prolonged correspondence. To cut a long story short, by exhibit P-26, the third respondent informed the petitioner that the shares could be accepted, if at all, fixing the value of a share at Rs. 130.
4. Counsel for petitioner submitted, and fairly too, that the Central Government or the Controller of Estate Duty cannot be compelled, by a mandamus, to accept transfer of property. According to counsel, if the value of a share is fixed at Rs. 130, that should be the basis for reckoning the value of shares, in computing the value of the estate (which includes shares). While computing the value of the estate, the value of each share was fixed at Rs. 170.50. Learned counsel for the Revenue submitted that an order of assessment has already been made and that, on its own, the Department may not be in a position to review the same, unless so directed by this court. Having regard to the facts and circumstances, it is only just that the value of a share is treated the same, for the purposes of valuation and for the purpose of taxation. Equity requires parity in these areas. In the circumstances, I direct the third respondent to revise the order of assessment treating the value of the share in question as the same under exhibit P-26 for purposes of computing the value of the estate.
5. With this direction, the writ petition is disposed of. Parties will suffer their costs.