Home Case Index All Cases Wealth-tax Wealth-tax + AT Wealth-tax - 2016 (4) TMI AT This
Forgot password New User/ Regiser ⇒ Register to get Live Demo
2016 (4) TMI 500 - AT - Wealth-taxReassessment - addition of alleged urban land - contentions of the assessee to treat the land as “land occupied by any building which has been constructed with the approval of the appropriate authority” and thus excludible from ‘urban land’ exigible to wealth tax - Held that:- We are, however, not persuaded by learned counsel’s submission. The words are clear and unambiguous. A piece of vacated land cannot be excluded from taxable wealth simply because building has been constructed thereupon subsequently. As for the ‘genuine hardship’ being faced by the assessee, we need not commiserate with the assessee because it is not for us to supply the casus omissus, even if any. In the case of Tarulata Shyam vs. CIT [1977 (4) TMI 3 - SUPREME Court ] held that there is no scope for importing into the statute the words which are not there. Such interpretation would be, not to construe, but to amend the statute. Even if there be a casus omissus, the defect can be remedied only by legislation and not by judicial interpretation.To us, there appears no justification to depart from normal rule of construction according to which the intention of Legislature is primarily to be gathered from the words used in the statute. There is no room for any intendment. There is no equity about a tax. There is no presumption as to a tax. Nothing is to be read in, nothing is to be implied. One can only look fairly at the language used.” Once it is shown that the case of the assessee comes within the letter of law, he must be taxed, however great the hardship may appear to the judicial mind to be. Thus we see no need to resort to any creative interpretation process to read down the provision, even if, as learned Counsel claims, any undue hardship is caused by the plain words of the statute.
|