TMI Blog1975 (9) TMI 51X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y. The assessee battered the position in appeals before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner and the Appellate Tribunal. When his claim was rejected, he required the Tribunal to state a case raising the first question indicated above to be referred to this court. When the Tribunal rejected the application, this court was moved in S. J. Cs. Nos. 225 to 230 of 1972 in respect of the aforesaid six years. In the assessment year 1965-66, the assessee asked for recording a partial partition under section 171 of the Act. The Income-tax Officer refused the prayer by order dated March 28, 1970, by holding that the assessee being an individual in status, the claim for partition was untenable. The question was battered in appeal before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner as also the Appellate Tribunal and when relief was not granted and the request to refer the case was rejected by the Tribunal, S. J. C. No. 223 of 1972 was filed in this court. In the assessment years 1965-66 and 1966-67, the registration of a firm by name "Autoways (India)" was claimed by Sardar Santokh Singh and members of his family who claimed to have constituted the firm, but the application under section 185 of t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... parate properties of Sardar Santokh Singh had been put into the common stock and he and his sons formed a smaller Hindu undivided family. Accordingly, the status of the assessee in respect of the assessment years 1962-63 to 1967-68 should have been that of Hindu undivided family and the claim for partial partition should have been accepted as also the claim for registration of the firm should not have been rejected. Mr. Pasayat, for the assessee, concedes before us that there is no material for a finding that the assets invested in business the income whereof has been assessed during the material years belonged to the larger Hindu undivided family with Kartar Singh as karta and on partition of the said family the said assets came to the hands of Sardar Santokh Singh and his sons. In view of this concession, one of the alternative stands of the assessee must no more be examined. The other contention is on the basis that the assets had been found to have belonged to Sardar Santokh Singh. He was entitled to put his separate property into common stock of which he and his sons as coparceners could be joint owners. Therefore, his claim for being assessed in the status of Hindu undi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ot completely lost in the family. One or more members of that family can start a business or acquire property without the aid of the joint family property, but such business or acquisition would be his or their acquisition. The business so started or property so acquired can be thrown into the common stock or blended with the joint family property in which case the said property becomes the estate of the joint family. But he or they need not do so, in which case the said property would be his or their self-acquisition, and succession to such property would be governed not by the law of joint family but only by the law of inheritance. In such a case, if a property was jointly acquired by them, it would not be governed by the law of joint family ; for Hindu law does not recognise some of the members of a joint family belonging to different branches, or even to a single branch, as a corporate unit." The revenue has accepted the position that the assets introduced into the business earnings whereof are assessed as income in the relevant years belonged to Sardar Santokh Singh as his separate property. In Hindu law the position is settled beyond doubt that property which is self-acqui ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ion by his waiving and surrendering his separate rights in it as separate property. The act by which the coparcener throws his separate property in the common stock is a unilateral act. There is no question of either the family rejecting or accepting it. By his individual volition he renounces his individual right in that property and treats it as a property of the family. No longer (perhaps sooner) he declares his intention to treat his self-acquired property as that of the joint family property, the property assumes the character of joint family property. The doctrine of throwing into the common stock is a doctrine peculiar to the Mitakshara school of Hindu law." No dispute has been raised before us that the assessee would be governed by the Mitakshara school of Hindu law. In Mulla's Hindu Law, at page 45, 14th edition, it has been stated that Hindus living in Punjab are governed by the said school except to the extent customs exclude application of the Mitakshara law. On the admitted position that the assets belonged to Sardar Santokh Singh, he was entitled to put the same into the common stock and for doing so, no other process than expression of a clear and unequivocal inte ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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