TMI Blog1955 (7) TMI 28X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... udying in Madras. The Income-tax authorities, however, rejected his claim holding that clause (a) of sub-rule (2) of rule 3 of the Orissa Agricultural Income-tax Rules, 1948, on which he relied would not apply to the maintenance allowance paid by the proprietor of an impartible estate to his son. 3. Section 6 of the Orissa Agricultural Income-tax Act specifies various items of expenditure which may be lawfully deducted from the total agricultural income, in computing the net income liable to agricultural income-tax. The last clause of that section, clause (k), however, confers power on the Government to make rules specifying some other deductions which may also be lawfully allowed. In exercise of the power conferred by this clause, the Government of Orissa made sub-rule (2) of rule 3 of the Orissa Agricultural Income-tax Rules, 1948, which runs thus: 3. (2) In addition to the deductions specifically allowed under section 6, the following deduction provided under clause (k) of that section shall be allowed: Maintenance allowance, actually paid to the following members of the proprietor's family owning an impartible estate, provided that the aggregate of the allowances ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... comes to a decision as to the meaning, there is no ambiguity. Moreover, as pointed out in Colquhoun v. Brooks [1889] 14 App. Cas. 493 at 506 the Court is bound when construing the terms of any provision found in a statute to consider any other parts of the Act which throw light upon the intention of the Legislature and which may serve to show that the particular provision ought not to be construed as it would be if considered alone and apart from the rest of the Act. To a similar effect is the following observation of Lord Davey, in Canada Sugar Refining Co. v. R [1898] A.C. 735 at 741: Every clause of a statute should be construed with reference to the context and other clauses in the Act so as, as far as possible, to make a consistent enactment of the whole statute or series of statutes relating to the subject-matter. 7. Hence, in construing clause (a) of sub-rule (2) of rule 3 of the Orissa Agricultural Income-tax Rules we must carefully examine the other clauses also of that sub-rule and see whether the construction put on clause (a) by Mr. Patnaik will lead to any absurdity if applied to the other clauses of that sub-rule. It will be noticed that in clauses (a), (b) ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to exclude those persons who are direct descendants in the male line of the present proprietor. 8. This view is further strengthened if we examine the law regarding the right of maintenance of the various near relations of the proprietor of an impartible estate as it stood before the Rules were made and the legal history of the said Rules. In South Orissa impartible estates were all governed by the well-known statute--The Madras Impartible Estates Act, 1904. Section 9 of that Act enumerates various persons entitled to maintenance out of the impartible estate and that section is as follows (omitting immaterial portions): 9. Where for the purpose of ascertaining the succession to an impartible estate, the estate has to be regarded as the property of a joint Hindu family, the following persons shall have a right of maintenance out of the impartible estate and its income, namely: (a) the son, grandson, or great grandson, in the male line, born in lawful wedlock or adopted, of the proprietor of the impartible estate or of any previous proprietor thereof; (b) the widow of any previous proprietor of the impartible estate so long as she does not remarry; (c) the widow of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... dly omitted (see Craies on Statute Law, 5th edition, page 101). Following this principle of construction it seems clear that in clauses (a) and (d) of sub-rule (2) of rule 3 Government intended deliberately to exclude those persons who are also the descendants in the male line of the present proprietor or unmarried daughters of that proprietor. 9. It is now necessary to examine whether Mr. Patnaik's argument about the strict construction of a taxing statute in favour of a subject would apply in construing the various clauses of sub-rule (2) of rule 3 of the Orissa Agricultural Income-tax Rules. As already pointed out, those clauses deal with the deductions permissible out of the total agricultural income of an assessee for the purpose of assessing agricultural income-tax. It is well settled that the principle of strict construction of fiscal statutes will not apply in construing those provisions which deal with exemption from taxation because such exemptions increase the burden on the other members of the community and should therefore be deprecated (Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 10th Edition, p. 291). It was pointed out in Commissioner of Income-tax v. Maharaja Vi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e been applied in India as will be clear from a perusal of Commissioner of Income-tax, Bihar Orissa v. Maharaj Visweswar Singh [1935] 3 I.T.R. 216. I may also cite the following passage in the Full Bench decision of the Bombay High Court reported in In re Nirabai [1905] I.L.R. 29 Bom. 203: An enactment imposing a burden requires a strict construction in favour of the subject. But this is an exemption and must therefore be strictly construed in favour of the State. 12. Mr. Patnaik, however, made a fine distinction between exemption and deduction and urged that though the aforesaid principles may apply where an exemption is claimed they cannot apply in respect of deductions. It is true that in the Orissa Agricultural Income-tax Act and the rules framed thereunder a distinction is made between exemptions and deductions . Exemptions are in respect of the income received by the assessee (see sections 8 and 9) whereas deductions relates to the expenditure incurred by him (see section 6). But this distinction does not affect the principle of statutory construction discussed above. In fact, Littman v. Barron (Inspector of Taxes) [1951] 1 Ch. 993 related to a case of de ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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