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TMI Blog1974 (12) TMI 2X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Bhairon Singh was a scheduled jagirdar in the erstwhile State of jodhpur of the jagir of Barkana in District Pali. He received certain compensation consequent to the abolition of the jagir under the Rajasthan Land Reforms and Resumption of jagirs Act, 1952 (hereinafter called "the Abolition Act "), and he included the amount of the compensation in his return of wealth claiming that it was an asset of his HUF consisting of himself and his sons. The WTO by separate orders for each year but all dated March 31, 1965, rejected the contention of the assessee on the ground that the assessee having succeeded to the jagir on the rule of primogeniture prior to the year 1940 he was not governed by the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 or Hindu law but was governed by the personal law prevalent in the jodhpur State and, as such, his status was that of an individual. Dissatisfied, the assessee preferred appeals before the AAC, who, however, found that the assessee was the holder of an impartible estate which he had inherited from his father. On the principle laid down in CIT v. Krishna Kishore [1941] 9 ITR 695 (PC), Shiba Prasad Singh v. Rani Prayag Kumari Debi, AIR 1932 PC 216 and Mirza Raja Pushpa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y the original grantee or his successors during His Highness pleasure. Section 171 refers to the scheduled jagirs and the assessee's jagir was one of them. Section 172 lays down that subject to the provisions of this Act and of any other law for the time being in force, succession to all estates called " grants " shall be in accordance with the personal law to which the deceased landlord was subject. Section 173 speaks of escheat of the estate of an heirless grantee and s. 174 provides that when the grant is resumed under s. 173, the widow or dependant of the deceased grantee were to be granted maintenance allowance. Section 175 provides that a grant may at any time be resumed by His Highness if it was held by a person who was not entitled to hold it as an heir. Section 176 lays down that " no person shall be entitled to succeed to grant as heir whether by adoption or otherwise: (a) if he is not a natural lineal descendant in the male line of the original grantee; (b) if he is dumb and deaf, blind or insane; or (c) if it is proved that he murdered, attempted or abetted the murder, or abetted an attempt to murder, the last holder or his issue. We are not concerned with ss. 177 t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... assessee as an individual ? Without elaborating the principles that have been laid down with clarity and certainty in a number of Privy Council decisions regarding the character of an impartible estate, it should be sufficient to note what their Lordships of the Supreme Court have held in this connection. The head note in Mirza Raja Pushpavathi's case, AIR 1964 SC 118, admirably sums up the position thus: " Since the decision of the Privy Council in Shiba Prasad v. Rant Prayag Kumari, AIR 1932 PC 216, it must be taken to be well settled that an estate which is impartible by custom cannot be said to be the separate or exclusive property of the holder of the estate.. If the holder has got the estate as an ancestral estate and he has succeeded to it by primogeniture, it will be a part of the joint estate of the HUF. In the case of an ordinary joint family property, the members of the family can claim four rights : (1) the right of partition; (2) the right to restrain alienations by the head of the family except for necessity; (3) the right of maintenance; and (4) the right of survivorship. It is obvious that from the very nature of the property which is impartible the first of thes ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Mewar which are of the jagirs in Marwar. Section 107 of the Mewar Qanum Mal Act reads as under : The succession to the Mewar Jagirshad also to be recognised by His Highness, Udaipur, before the grant could continue. In this view of the matter, there is no distinction between the decision in Thakur Gopal Singh's case [1975] 99 ITR 354 (Raj) and the one before us. We accordingly accept the decision of our own court and see no reason to depart from the view taken therein. The Wealth-tax (Amendment) Act, 1964, amended s. 4 of the Act by introducing sub-s. (6) according to which, for the purposes of W.T. Act, the holder of an impartible estate shall be deemed to be an individual owner of all the properties comprised in the estate. This amendment by the Legislature is a known aid in the matter of construction of a statute. Maxwell says, " Not only may the later Act be construed by the light of the earlier, but it sometimes furnishes a legislative interpretation of the earlier, if it is in pari materia and the provisions of the earlier Act are ambiguous. " (Cf. Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes, 10th Edn., p. 35). The Legislature had recognised that an impartible estate could no ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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