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1995 (11) TMI 1

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..... spondent in all these appeals, As common questions of law and fact are involved between the very same parties in all these appeals, the appeals were heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment. The common respondent, Kamla Town Trust, was assessed to income-tax for the relevant assessment years 1949-50 to 1965-66. These assessment orders gave rise to a hierarchy of appeals under the Income-tax Act which ultimately culminated in 17 income-tax appeals by the assessee before the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Allahabad Bench, Allahabad. The common question in the appeals before the Tribunal was whether for the relevant assessment years the respondent-assessee was entitled to exemption from the payment of income-tax as per the provisions of section 4(3)(i) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 (hereinafter referred to as the "1922 Act"), and under section 11 read with section 2(15) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as "1961 Act"), in so far as they applied to the relevant assessment years. The Income-tax Appellate Tribunal dismissed the respondent-assessee's appeals for the assessment years 1949-50 to 1955-56 but it allowed the respondent-assessee's .....

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..... se proceedings that the second rectification, Suit No. 163 of 1954, was barred by section 11 and Order 2, rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 ? (c) Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was legally correct in holding that the objects and activities of the trust fell within the first limb of the definition of charitable purpose in section 2(15) of the new Act and the residuary clause thereof is not attracted 'for the assessment years 1962-63 to 1965-66 ? (d) Whether, on the interpretation of various clauses of the trust deed even as amended by the second rectification decree dated May 10, 1955, the trust is void for uncertainty and was not a public charitable trust ? (e) Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Income-tax Officer was entitled to go behind the civil court decree dated May 10, 1955, in Suit No. 163 of 1954, and adjudge the validity of the rectification ? The Division Bench of the High Court after hearing the rival contentions canvassed by the parties answered all the referred questions in favour of the respondent-assessee and against the Revenue. It is under these circumstances that the Revenue .....

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..... of land was demised by the Improvement Trust to the company by an indenture dated February 2, 1938, for a consideration of Rs. 26,300 for constructing an office for the said settlement. Both these plots were demised to the company at concessional rates for the welfare of workmen. The company transferred both the plots by the said trust deed of October 27, 1941, to the trustees for effectuating its object of settling these plots upon the charitable trust thereinafter mentioned in the deed. We will deal with the relevant recitals in the trust deed, in detail, at an appropriate stage in the latter part of this judgment. Suffice it to state at this juncture that one of the objects of the trust, as mentioned in paragraph 2(b) of the trust deed of 1941 was as under : " To erect, establish, equip, furnish, fit, maintain and repair on the said two plots of land, and any land that may hereafter be acquired by the trust. (1) residential quarters, chawls or buildings for the workmen and staff and other employees of the company or other allied concerns under the management or in which the directors of the company may for the time being be interested and for their respective families and .....

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..... e respondent-assessee trust happened to be a partner. The High Court held the rectification decree passed by the civil court to be valid and further held that it was not possible for the Income-tax Officer to question the validity of the rectification on the ground that the conditions for grant of rectification did not in fact exist. However, it was further held that the objects of the trust deed as rectified in 1945 did not create a public charitable trust and on an analysis of the object clause 2(b)(i) of the trust deed held that it being a mixture of charitable and non-charitable objects, could not be treated to be creating a public charitable trust. In the meanwhile, the settlor-company had filed another suit being Suit No. 163 of 1954 in the Court of First Civil judge, Kanpur, for further rectification of the trust deed. It was reiterated in the plaint that the real intention of the settlor company was to create a public charitable trust for the benefit of the public in the city of Kanpur and the surrounding areas particularly, the members of the working class including the workmen employed in the plaintiff-company, but in their capacity as members of the working class. The .....

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..... t of the settlor-company and the objects of the trust could not be altered subsequently unless the trust was revoked for which there was no power under the deed. The income from it was, therefore, assessed to tax. He relied on the decision of the Calcutta High Court in Mercantile Bank of India (Agency) Ltd., In re [1942] 10 ITR 512 and held that a trust for the benefit of its employee and members of the staff is not a charitable trust. The respondent-assessee preferred appeals to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner dismissed all the appeals of the respondent. It is under these circumstances that the respondent-assessee approached the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal as noted earlier. The assessee partly succeeded while the Revenue also succeeded in part before the Income-tax Tribunal and that is how seven questions came to be referred to the High Court under section 256(1) by the Tribunal, two at the instance of the assessee and five at the instance of the Revenue and which came to be wholly decided in favour of the respondent-assessee as already noted earlier. Rival contentions : Learned senior counsel, Dr. Gauri Shankar, raised the foll .....

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..... nsequently even apart from the retrospective effect of the rectification in 1955, the respondent-assessee was entitled to claim exemption from the payment of income-tax for these relevant years. However, so far as the answer to question No. 2 referred for the opinion of the High Court at the instance of the respondent-assessee was concerned, Shri Verma fairly stated that he was not supporting the said answer and that he was conceding that 1955 rectification of the trust deed had only prospective effect. Shri Gauri Shankar, learned senior counsel for the Revenue in the rejoinder submitted that 1945 rectification did not create a public charitable trust. He, however, fairly stated that as there was no clear indication from the judgment of the High Court about any colourable device on the part of the assessee or its trustees underlying the creation of the trust, he was not pressing that point any further. In the light of the aforesaid rival contentions the battle lines are clearly drawn between the contesting parties wherein the first five contentions canvassed on behalf of the Revenue by Dr. Gauri Shankar will have to be examined and the sixth and the last contention which arises .....

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..... was equally inoperative and without jurisdiction. It was also held that the Trusts Act applied only to private trusts and not to public trusts. And that after the death of the settlor, the trust had become a public trust. Moreover, section 34 of the Trusts Act provided only for a summary enquiry and order with respect to management or administration of the trust property other than questions of detail, difficulty or importance. We fail to appreciate how the aforesaid decision can be of any assistance to learned senior counsel for the Revenue in the present case. On the facts of the case before the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the City Civil Court, Hyderabad, had no jurisdiction under section 34 of the Trusts Act to bring about any changes in the objects of the trust which had become a public trust. On the facts of the present case section 31 of the 1877 Act (Specific Relief Act) or the corresponding provisions of section 26 of the 1963 Act could be effectively invoked for rectification of the instrument of the trust. Such a court does not suffer from any inherent lack of jurisdiction, like the City Civil Court in the Andhra Pradesh case which had no such jurisdiction under section 3 .....

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..... to rectify the instrument by either of the parties to the instrument. Absence of such a condition would at the most make the order erroneous and which can be challenged by either of the parties to the proceedings but it will have no impact on the jurisdiction of the civil court to pass such an order however erroneous it may appear to be to the Revenue. At the highest such an error would remain in the realm of error in the exercise of the jurisdiction and not an error depriving jurisdiction to the competent court to entertain such rectification proceedings. In this connection, it is profitable to have a look at the decision of the Delhi High Court in the case of Jagdamba. Charity Trust v. CIT [1981] 128 ITR 377. In that case the deed of trust was got rectified by the parties from the civil court. These proceedings had to be initiated in the light of the judgment of the High Court which had held that due to the provisions in certain clauses of the trust deed the trust was non-charitable and the trust was not entitled to exemption under the Income-tax Act and that since the decision had created some doubts regarding the validity of some clauses of the deed it was necessary that the .....

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..... in connection with the proceedings for rectification of instruments like trust deeds, initiated before the competent civil courts under the relevant provisions of the Specific Relief Act. In the case of Laxminarain Lath Trust v. CIT [1988] 170 ITR 375, a Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court speaking through S. C. Agrawal J., as he then was, had to consider the question whether any rectification of the trust deed which changed the character of the private trust into a public charitable trust could be relied upon before the income-tax authorities for claiming exemption under section 11 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, by the assessee-trust. In that case the original trust deed executed in August, 1948, did not bring out the real intention of the settlor to create a public charitable trust on account of certain sub-clauses of object clause No. 2. It was, therefore, felt necessary to rectify the mistake in the original settlement deed so as to put on record the true intention of the settlor and of the trust created by him. It was held by the Rajasthan High Court that it was permissible for the settlor to clarify his intention in creating the trust under the original settlement deed .....

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..... n the facts of that case. However, the fact remains that after due rectification of the original trust deed either by the settlor himself by executing a supplementary deed or by getting it rectified through the competent civil court under the relevant provisions of the Specific Relief Act, the trustees would be bound to carry out the amended and rectified objects of the trust and if they fail to do so they would be guilty of breach of trust for which even proper proceedings can be initiated against them under section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure. For all these reasons, therefore, it must be held that when such rectified trust deed is pressed in service before the income-tax authorities in the assessment proceedings concerning the relevant assessment years the Income-tax Officer will have to interpret such rectified instrument for finding out its correct legal effect. But it will not be open to the Income-tax Officer to refuse to look at such rectified instrument of the trust and to insist that the trustees of the trust should ignore the said rectified objects and should stick to the instrument as it existed prior to its rectification. The Income-tax Officer will have to take t .....

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..... t be relied upon by the assessee-trust in the assessment proceedings before the Income-tax Officer even though the Revenue or the Income-tax Officer was not a party to such rectification proceedings. It will be for the Income-tax Officer to consider the real scope and ambit of the trust deed as presented to him in rectified form with a view to finding out whether on the basis of such a rectified instrument the assessee trust had earned exemption from payment of income-tax under the relevant provisions holding the field in the concerned assessment years. The third contention is, therefore, decided by an swering that though the rectification orders of the civil court are not judgments in rem they are relevant in the assessment proceedings before the Income-tax Officer and will have to be given effect to for whatever they are worth. Contention No. 4 So far as this contention is concerned learned senior counsel for the Revenue is spared his pains as learned senior counsel for the respondent assessee fairly stated in the light of the debate that took place in the court that he was not supporting the answer given by the High Court in favour of assessee on question No. 2 referred fo .....

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..... f establishing a trust or settlement for public religious or charitable purposes including trusts or settlements for relief of poverty, education, medical relief and advancement of any other object of general public utility of religious or charitable nature, the company doth hereby grant convey and assure up to the trustees the said plot of land situate at Kanpur and numbered as 1 in Block H Factory Workmen Area containing by admeasurement 43.70 (forty-three decimal point seventy) acres more or less and more clearly delineated and shown on the plan annexed to the said indenture bearing date the 19th day of October, 1936, and thereon marked red as also the said plot of land situate at Kanpur and numbered as 2 in Block H Factory Workmen Area containing by admeasurement 26.30 (twenty-six decimal point thirty) acres more or less and more clearly delineated and shown on the plan annexed to the said indenture dated the 2nd day of February, 1938, and thereon marked red together with all way wells waters, water courses, sewers, ditches, drains, trees, shrubs, liberties, easements, profits privileges and appurtenances whatsoever to the said plots of land, respectively, belonging or in any w .....

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..... d thereto. (b) To erect, establish, equip, furnish, fit, maintain and repair on the said two plots of land or any other land that may hereafter be acquired by the trustees on behalf of the trust (i) residential quarters, chawls or buildings for the workmen in the town of Kanpur and the surrounding areas and extensions and for their respective families and dependents and for such other skilled and unskilled workmen, craftsmen, traders, merchants, technical or professional men whom the trustees may permit to reside or work in the said two plots provided that the benefit in this clause shall be granted only to those persons who on account of poverty are in need of help and really deserve help. (ii) Public schools, pathshalas, colleges, libraries, public halls, hostels or boarding houses, (iii) Hospitals, dispensaries, museum, places of recreation, instruction, swimming baths, lakes, parks, play-grounds, temples, mosques, churches, a market or markets and such other works and institutions of general public utility. (iv) Such other works, building and installations as the trustees may in their discretion think fit to provide for the advancement of any other similar object of .....

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..... only the employees of the settlor-company and there was no whisper about benefit to humanity at large or to members of the general public. Thus it was clearly a private trust. That though by the rectification of 1945 the term "workmen in general" was introduced for indicating the class of beneficiaries, in substance the benefit was reserved to the workmen of the settlor-company itself, and that even after 1955 rectification, the words "workmen in general in Kanpur and surrounding areas and extensions" remained a mere camouflage. It is not possible to agree with the aforesaid submissions of learned senior counsel Dr. Gauri Shankar, for the Revenue. The reasons are obvious. It cannot be said that the indicated beneficiaries, namely, the workmen in the town of Kanpur and surrounding areas and extensions are so vague as to make the object of the trust inoperative or otiose. The workmen in the town of Kanpur and the surrounding areas and extensions formed a clearly earmarked class or category of members of the general public and they were certainly a part and parcel of the general public. It is also not possible to countenance the submission that the words "surrounding areas and extens .....

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..... that the objects are specific and charitable in nature. The beneficiaries are also clearly indicated. There is also no ambiguity about the trustees or the trust properties. Thus, all the basic requirements for creation of a public charitable trust do exist on the express language of the relevant sub-clauses of clause 2 of the 1955 rectified deed. Dr. Gauri Shankar, learned senior counsel for the Revenue, then submitted that in any case absolute discretion is vested in the trustees under the trust deed to utilise the trust income for the benefit of any of the sub-classes of workmen in the town of Kanpur and they were likely to divert the entire benefit to their-own workmen. To say the least, it is merely a discretion left to the trustees and not an obligation of the trustees that they must necessarily spend the income of the trust for the workmen of the settlor-company itself and not for the benefit of any other outside worker. We shall deal with this aspect in greater detail when we will refer to contention No. 6 canvassed by learned senior counsel for the assesseetrust that even apart from the rectification of 1955 the earlier rectification of 1945 did create a public charitable .....

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..... rm and comply with or such as may from time to time be mutually agreed upon between the Cawnpore Improvement Trust and the trustees consistently with the powers reserved by the said Cawnpore Improvement Trust in that behalf under the said two indentures." It is no doubt true that the trustees are enjoined to utilise the trust properties subject to the terms and provisions of the indentures dated October 19, 1936, and February 2, 1938, which require the trustees to utilise the trust property for the benefit of the settlor-company's own workmen. But as rightly submitted by Shri Verma, learned senior counsel for the assessee-trust, the said clause would not detract from the public charitable nature of the trust as projected by the relevant operative parts of the object clause to which we have made detailed reference earlier. Shri Verma was also right when he contended that if at all the trustees diverted the benefit to the beneficiaries other than the workmen of the company itself it would give a cause of action to the original vendor, namely, the Town Improvement Trust, which had taken no steps in all these years or made any grievance about the same and secondly as provided by the .....

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..... s concerns of J. K. Group for the advancement of their business or advanced to J. K. Charitable Trust. From the day-to-day working of the trust also it is thus quite clear that it enured for no charitable purposes. " Now, it must be at once noted that the said observations are made in connection with the assessment proceedings for 1948-49. They would be governed by the trust deed as rectified by the first rectification in 1945. Consequently, these observations cannot apply to the interpretation of an entirely different set of recitals found in the rectified deed of 1955. Even that apart Shri Verma, learned senior counsel for the assessee, has invited our attention to various documents which are on record in Volume I of the paper book at pages 21, 28, 176, 179, 183 and 184 to indicate that in fact the benefit of the income from the trust was made available not only to workmen of the company but to outside workmen also who resided within Kanpur town. It was also submitted that the aforesaid documents clearly showed that the rent recovered from the workmen who occupied these 160 cottages put up by the settlor-company on the trust land was minimal and was highly subsidised as compa .....

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..... ed of 1955 did create a public charitable trust as rightly held by the High Court. Contention No. 5, therefore, stands rejected. Contention No. 6 : So far as this contention is concerned, it is canvassed for the first time before us by Shri Verma, learned senior counsel for the assessee-trust, for supporting the ultimate answer given by the High Court on question No. 1 referred for the opinion of the High Court at the instance of the assessee. Shri Verma submitted that leaving aside the 1955 second rectification even the original trust deed of 1941 as rectified in 1945 did create a public charitable trust. The main plank of his argument was based on the following premises : 1. Workmen in general and in particular of the company are also a part and parcel of the public and it cannot be said that they are not members of the general public residing in Kanpur. 2. We have to judge the correct connotation of the term "workmen in general" in the light of the economic and social conditions that prevailed in 1945 when the-deed was rectified. According to Shri Verma, construction of the residential quarters, chawls or buildings for the workmen in general and in particular or the .....

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..... ri Shankar, for the Revenue, relying upon a number of other judgments including judgments of the Chancery Division of the English court submitted that the workmen by themselves cannot be treated to be a poor class of citizens for whom any benefit given under the trust deed would necessarily make it a public charitable object and if the trustees under the deed are under an obligation to provide the benefit of the trust properties to the employees of the settlor-company itself the company by giving such benefit would, in turn, be exonerating itself from its otherwise contractual obligation or even statutory obligation of providing welfare facilities and residential facilities to its own workmen who because of these facilities would work more efficiently for the company. Thus, there would be a quid pro quo between the settlor on the one hand and the beneficiaries, namely, the workmen and the employees of the company, on the other. That such a provision would detract from the real public charitable nature of the endowment. In the light of the aforesaid rival contentions on this issue, we shall now proceed to examine this moot question. Before we deal with these rival submissions, it .....

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..... rect recipients of any benefits under sub-clauses (b) to (f) and the circumstance that in selecting the beneficiaries under sub-clause (a) preference had to be given under the provisos to the relations or members of the family of Sir Sassoon David could not affect that the public charitable trust, the income from the properties came within the scope of section 4(3)(i) of the Income-tax Act and were exempt. Reliance was also placed on a number of other decisions of various High Courts which obviously fell in line with the aforesaid decision of this court and which had taken the view that if the main benefit of the settled property in trust had to go to charity, if the trustees were permitted to give preference to poor relations of the settlors the trust would remain a public charitable trust. In this connection, our attention was invited to the decisions of the Gujarat High Court in CIT v. Moosa Haji Ahmed [1964] 52 ITR 147, the Calcutta High Court in CIT v. Board of Mutwallis to the Wakf Estate, Ebrahim Solaiman Saleji [1968] 69 ITR 758 and the three decisions of the Bombay High Court in CIT v. Trustees of Seth Meghji Mathuradas Charity Trust [1959] 37 ITR 419 ; CWT v. Trustees of .....

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..... 1951] AC 297 in the House of Lords in 1951. Therefore, it is common ground that the scheme does not constitute valid charitable trusts. . . . " In Drummond, In re [1914] 2 Ch D 90, it was held that the work people in question could not be regarded as poor people, within the statute of Elizabeth. In our view, the aforesaid decisions of the English Chancery Courts cannot ipso facto be made applicable to workmen residing in this country and who had to face entirely different socio-economic conditions, especially in 1945, when the rectified object of the trust deed saw the light of day. While interpreting the word "workmen in general" as employed in 1945 rectified trust deed, we have to sit in the settlor's arm chair with a view to visualising what was meant by the settlor-company when it used these terms in 1945, keeping in view the then prevalent socioeconomic conditions in this country. It is easy to visualise that workmen who were to toil for their existence would necessarily represent a class of needy persons requiring a shelter over their head. When the settlor-company in 1945 contemplated to construct residential quarters, chawls or buildings for workmen it necessarily meant t .....

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..... the controversy centering round the aforesaid clause. There are two clear-hurdles in the way of Shri Verma for the respondent which militate against his submission that the said clause when read as a whole does create a public charitable trust in favour of workmen in general. The first hurdle is that the term " workmen in general" as employed in the clause is too general and vague but even assuming that in the context of the residential quarters, chawls or buildings to be constructed for them on the lands situated at Kanpur which are settled in trust by the settlor-company, it would refer to workmen in Kanpur town, even then the more substantial hurdle in the way of the respondent is projected by the fact that there is an obligation cast on the trustees to construct these residential quarters, chawls or buildings in particular for the workmen, staff and other employees of the company or other allied concerns under the management of and in which the directors of the company may for the time being be interested and for their respective families and dependents. In the light of the words "in particular " as found in this clause, Dr. Gauri Shankar, learned senior counsel for the Revenu .....

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..... gation upon the trustees to prefer the employees. In other words, if the other members of the public were postponed to the employees of the Premier Construction Co. Ltd., then, looking to the other provisions of the deed, we might easily have taken the view that the main purpose of the trust was to benefit the employees and the charity to the public was merely illusory. But there is no obligation cast upon the trustees by this proviso to prefer the employees of the Premier Construction Co. Ltd. It is for the trustees to exercise their discretion. In the first place, they have to utilise the income for carrying out the four objects, and any member of the public who comes within these four objects would be qualified to receive the bounty of the settlor. If a member of the public also happens to be an employee of the Premier Construction Co. Ltd., it is open to the trustees to give him preference. Therefore, the trustees would not be guilty of committing any breach of trust if they selected for the bounty of the settlor such members of the public as did not fall in the category of employees of the Premier Construction Co. Ltd. That is the real test which we have got to apply. We must .....

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..... it. A fluctuating body of private individuals such as the present and future officers and members of the staff and other employees of a company could not be a part of the general public or of any section of the public and, therefore, the income of the trust fund was not exempt from the payment of income-tax under section 4(3)(i). It was further observed that Andrew Yule and Co Ltd., and their subsidiary concerns for whose employees benefit was conferred under the deed employed a large number of persons. The trust was for the benefit of the past, present and future officers, members of the staff and other employees of those concerns. Anyone from the secretary or some other highly paid member of the staff down to the lowest menial may be included within the benefit of this fund. Necessitous circumstances might include the case of a superior employee earning some thousands of rupees per month, who owing to some misfortune--say the burning down of his house, or the loss of his property--might find himself suddenly in necessitous circumstances, and in need of money to replace his lost property. The learned judge could see no reason why the administrators of the fund should not be in a .....

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..... a provision for constructing residential quarters, etc., for the benefit of the employees irrespective of whether they are poor or not, can hardly be said to be a charitable object or a work of general public utility. As we have discussed earlier, the term "workmen in general" when read in the context of the socioeconomic situation prevailing in 1945 in this country and when also considered in the context of construction of residential quarters, chawls or buildings in Kanpur may partake of the character of a well-defined class of workmen in Kanpur city who may be poor and needy, still as the trustees are enjoined to construct residential quarters, chawls or buildings in particular for the workmen, staff and other employees of the company it follows that other employees of the company who are the beneficiaries may not necessarily be poor or needy or affluent. We, therefore, concur with the second part of the reasoning of the Allahabad High Court in the aforesaid judgment though we are not in a position to subscribe to the general proposition that construction of residential colonies for workmen in general cannot by itself be regarded as an object of public charity. As a result of .....

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..... r learned senior advocates, yield the following result : (i) For the assessment years 1949-50 to 1955-56, the respondent-assessee would not be entitled to get the benefit of section 4(3)(i) of the 1922 Act and income derived by it from its properties would not get exemption from income-tax under the said provision. (ii) For the assessment years 1956-57 to 1961-62, the income derived by the respondent-assessee from the trust properties during these years will get exempted under section 4(3)(i) of the 1922 Act as the 1955 rectified trust deed is held by us to be having objects of wholly charitable nature. (iii) For the assessment years 1962-63 to 1965-66, the income derived from the trust properties by the respondent-trust will be entitled to exemption from income-tax under section 11 of the 1961 Act subject to compliance with the conditions laid down therein as even during this period the rectified trust deed of 1955 as interpreted by us will be treated to have held the field. Final Order : In the light of the aforesaid discussion and the conclusions to which we have reached the questions referred for the opinion of the High Court will stand answered as under : Questio .....

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