Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC346; [1959]35ITR519(SC); [1959]Supp1SCR683
Sarkar, J.1. The appellant is a company carrying on business as a distiller of country liquor. It was incorporated in May 1945 and was in fact a previously existing company called the Amritsar Distillery Co. Ltd. reconstructed under the provisions of the Company's Act. The appellant carried on the same business as its predecessor, namely, sale of the produce of its distillery to licensed wholesalers. The wholesalers in their turn sold the liquor to licensed retailers from whom the actual consumers made their purchases. The entire trade was largely controlled by Government regulations. 2. After the war started the demand for country liquor increased but difficulty was felt in finding bottles in which the liquor was to be sold. In order to relieve the scarcity of bottles the Government devised in 1940 a scheme called the buy-back scheme. The scheme in substance was that a distiller on a sale of liquor became entitled to charge a wholesaler a price for the bottles in which the liquor was ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC719; [1959]35ITR803(SC)
Gajendragadkar, J.1. This is an appeal by special leave against the decision of the High Court of Mysore holding that the document relied upon by the appellant does not create a relation of partnership between the appellant, M. P. Davis and his brother, P. W. Davis. It appears that prior to the assessment year 1952-53 the appellant who was the registered owner of the Kaimabetta Coffee Estate was assessed as an individual; but for the assessment year 1952-53 he claimed a change of status and pleaded that he and his brother had agreed to become partners under a partnership deed (exhibit 12) and asked for the registration of the said firm under section 26 of the Coorg Agricultural Income-tax Act (1 of 1951). According to the appellant the partnership in question had been constituted for the purposes inter alia of the joint working of the said estate as also for transacting generally the business or business of coffee, citrus and pepper and other businesses as specified in the document. Th...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC359; [1959]35ITR594(SC); [1959]Supp1SCR646
Gajendragadkar, J.1. The appellant is a firm acting as managing agents of the Janardana Mills Ltd., Coimbatore. It purchased four contiguous plots of land admeasuring 5 acres 26 cents under four sale deeds executed on October 25, 1941, November 15, 1941, June 29, 1942, and November 19, 1942, respectively for a total consideration of Rs. 8,712-15-6. After about five years these properties were sold by the appellant in two lots to the Janardana Mills Ltd. The first lot was sold on September 1, 1947, and the second on November 10, 1947, the total consideration for the two sales being Rs. 52,600. These two sales realised for the appellant a sum of Rs. 43,887-0-6 in excess of the purchase price.2. The Income-tax Officer treated the said amount of Rs. 43,887 as the income of the appellant for the assessment year 1948-49, and assessed it to income-tax under the head 'business'. The officer held that there was no evidence to show that the appellant had purchased the said lands for agricultural...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC422; [1959]Supp1SCR623
Venkatarama Aiyar, J.1. These appeals raise a question of considerable importance as to the scope of an enquiry in an election petition wherein election is called in question under section 100(1)(c) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of 1951), on the ground that a nomination paper had been improperly rejected. 2. The facts are that during the general elections which were held in 1957 six persons including the appellant, Veluswami Thevar, the second respondent Chellapandian, and the fourth respondent, Arunachalam, were nominated for election to the Legislative Assembly of the State of Madras from Alangulam Constituency in the District of Tirunelveli. At the time of the scrutiny which was on February 1, 1957, Chellapandian raised an objection to the nomination of Arunachalam on the ground that he was the Head Master of the National Training School, Tiruchendur, which was a Government-aided school, and that he was therefore disqualified under section 7, clauses (d) and (e) ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC149; [1959]35ITR190(SC); 1959Supp(1)SCC528; [1959]Supp1SCR528
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No.208 of 1958. Appeal by special leave from the order dated January 29, 1958, of the Commissioner of Income-tax,Delhi & Rajasthan at New Delhi, under s. 8A(2) of the Taxation on Income (Investigation Commission) Act, 1947. Harnam Singh and Sadhu Singh for the appellant. M. C. Setalvad, Attorney-General for India, C. K. Daphtary, Solicitor-General of India, B. Sen and R. H. Dhebar for the respondents. A. C. Mitra and B. P. Maheshwari, for the interveners. 1958. November 19. The Judgment of Das, C. J., and Kapur, J.,, was delivered by Das, C. J. Bhagwati, S. K. Das and Subba Rao, JJ., delivered separate judgments. DAS, C. J.-This appeal by special leave filed by one Shri Besheshar Nath hereinafter referred to as ",the assessee " calls in question the validity of a settlement made under s. 8A of the Taxation on Income (Investigation Commission) Act, 1947 (30 of 1947), hereinafter referred to as " the Investigation Act ". This Act, which came...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC459; (1959)61BOMLR811; [1959]Supp1SCR489
Bhagwati, J.1. These six petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution challenge the vires of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Amendment) Act, 1956 (Bom. XIII of 1956) (hereinafter referred to as the 'impugned Act'). It was an Act further to amend the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 (Bom. LXVII of 1948) (hereinafter called the '1948 Act'). 2. The petitioners are citizens of India and landholders within the meaning of the 1948 Act holding several acres of land within the State of Bombay out of which a few acres are under their own cultivation, the bulk of the lands being under the cultivation of tenants - except in the case of the petitioners in Petition No. 58 of 1958 where the whole of the lands are under the cultivation of tenants. 3. The 1948 Act had been passed by the State Legislature as a measure of agrarian reform on December 28, 1948, with a view to amend the law relating to tenancies of agricultural lands and to make certain other provisions in regar...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC475; [1959]Supp1SCR478
Wanchoo, J.1. These sixty-nine petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution by various land-owners in the former State of Ajmer attack the validity of the Ajmer Abolition of Intermediaries and Land Reforms Act, 1955 (Ajmer III of 1955) (hereinafter called the Act). The petitions disclose a large number of grounds on which the validity of the Act is impugned; but learned counsel, Mr. Achhru Ram and Mr. B. D. Sharma, appearing for various petitioners, have confined their arguments only to certain grounds raised in the petitions. We propose, therefore, to consider only the grounds urged before us. 2. The Act was passed by the Ajmer Legislative Assembly and received the assent of the President on May 29, 1955. Section 4 of the Act provided for vesting of all estates held by intermediaries, as defined in the Act, in the State Government from a date to be notified. The Act came into force on June 23, 1955, and August 1, 1955, was notified as the date on which the estates held by intermedia...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC436; 1959CriLJ527; 1959Supp(1)SCC464; [1959]Supp1SCR464
Gajendragadkar, J. 1. This criminal appeal raises a short question about the construction of the word 'detains' occurring in section 498 of the Indian Penal Code. It arises in this way. The two appellants were charged before the trial magistrate under section 498 of the Code in that on or about October 27, 1952, at the village Mohania they wrongfully detained Mst. Rahmatia, the legally married wife of the complainant Saklu Mian, when they knew or had reason to believe that she was the wedded wife of the complainant and was under his protection, with intent to have illicit intercourse with her. The prosecution case was that Mst. Rahmatia had disappeared from her husband's house on October 21, 1952; the complainant made search for her for several days but was not able to trace her whereabouts. Ultimately he filed a complaint at the police station after he was informed by Shakoor Mian (P.W. 4) that he had seen the complainant's wife at the house of the two appellants. The complainant then...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC341; [1959]35ITR416(SC); [1950]Supp(1)SCR415
Venkatarama Aiyar, J.1. The appellant was a Hindu undivided family carrying on business as piecegoods merchants in the city of Calcutta. The present proceedings relate to the assessment of its income for the year 1946-47, the previous year thereto being June 12, 1944, to April 24, 1945. In the course of the assessment, the appellant filed a petition under section 25-A of the Income-tax Act, 1922, claiming that there had been a partition in the family on April 24, 1945. On May 27, 1945, the Income-tax Officer enquired into both these matters, the factum of partition and the quantum of income chargeable to tax, and pronounced orders thereon on June 30, 1945. On the petition under section 25-A, he held that the partition was true, and that the family had become divided into give groups. As regards the income assessable under section 23, the dispute related to six sums aggregating to Rs. 2,30,346 shown in the accounts as the sale proceeds of ornaments. The case of the appellant with refere...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1959SC443; [1959]Supp1SCR426
Gajendragadkar, J.1. This appeal arises from a suit brought by the appellant in the court of the Subordinate Judge, Mysore, as the sole executor of the will alleged to have been executed by one Lakshmamma on August 22, 1945, (Ex. A). In this suit the appellant claimed a declaration that the said Lakshmamma was the owner of the properties mentioned in the schedule attached to the plaint and as such was entitled to dispose of them by a will; and he asked for consequential reliefs purporting to give effect to the bequests made by the said will. The schedule attached to the plaint describes the properties covered by the will under five items. First three items in the schedule refer respectively to 5, 4 and 4 agricultural lands at Hampapura village, whereas the fourth item includes 9 lands at Arjunahalli village and the last item is a vacant site in Hampapura village. According to the plaint, under the will respondent 1 was entitled only to a life interest in items 1 and 2 and that on her d...
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