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TMI Blog1965 (1) TMI 2X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... unting year ending with March 31, 1958, under the Gift-tax Act in respect of a gift made to his wife, by a deed of gift dated September 18, 1957 of Act 15.46 cents of land, of the value as given on the deed of Rs. 23,000. The Gift-tax Officer did not allow the exemption under section 5(1)(viii) of the Act, because the donor was a Hindu undivided family. Before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner it would appear that the assessee contended that the gift made by a Hindu undivided family to the wife of the karta should have been exempted from tax ; but this contention, it was stated, was not pressed. Before the Tribunal it was again raised. The Tribunal, however, in paragraph 3 of its order stated : "With reference to gifts made by a Hindu u ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n as per the statement of the case, is that there cannot be any distinction between gift made by an individual to his wife and a member of the Hindu undivided family to his wife and, at the worst, in the latter case, it should be presumed to have been made out of his share in the Hindu undivided family. Section 5(1)(viii) reads thus : "5. (1) Gift-tax shall not be charged under this Act in respect of gifts made by any person-...... (viii) to his or her spouse, subject to a maximum of rupees one lakh in value in the aggregate in one or more previous years, the expression 'spouse' in this clause, where there are more wives than one meaning all the wives together." "Person" has been defined in section 2(xviii) to include a Hindu undivided f ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on the construction of the deed with which he conveyed the property. A question of similar nature arising on analagous facts arose for decision by a Bench of this court consisting of Chandra Reddy C.J. and Chandrasekhara Sastry J. in Jana Veera Bhadraya v. Commissioner of Gift-tax. The question there was, "whether a gift made by a person who is the manager of a joint Hindu family to his wife of a portion of the property belonging to the family is a gift by a person to his spouse within the meaning of section 5(1)(viii) of the Gift-tax Act." The facts there also were that a manager of the Hindu joint family made a gift of some property belonging to the joint family, to his wife. The contents of that gift deed so far as they pertain to the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ef Justice observed : "We are not here concerned with the question whether it is open to the manager of a joint family to make a gift of the joint family property to his wife, nor are we concerned with the question whether it would be allotted to his share. The controversy relates to the capacity in which he made the gift. It cannot be postulated that he made the gift as the manager of the family, since the words of the document make it abundantly clear that in his capacity as the husband he made the gift. If that were so, there is no reason why this gift should be excluded from the ambit of clause (viii) of section 5(1) of the Act." We are in respectful agreement with these observations. We cannot also find any merit in the contention t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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