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1992 (1) TMI 141

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..... nd interest in the partnership firm. It was contended before the WTO that no wealth-tax is payable by the assessee. 3. The firs ground taken up by the assessee is against the order of the WTO, as to the satisfaction of the conditions laid down by s. 45(d) of the WT Act. The assessee is a trust created by a will dt. 19th Nov., 1975 by one Shri Chababhai Vallabhbhai Patel. The assessee is one amount the 19 trusts created by the will. The claim of the assessee for exemption form the WT Act was denied by the WTO, in view of the amendment to s. 21(4) w.e.f. 1st. April, 1980 i.e. for asst. yr. 1980-81 onwards. The amended proviso makes clear that the trust declared by the persons by will get the benefit under this provision, if the trust is the only on created by him. The assessee's further contention that it should be assessed at the rate applicable to an individual and not at the rate of 3 per cent was also rejected by the WTO. 4. The assessee has claimed exemption in respect of investment in shares of Ganapathi Pulp and Paper Mills Ltd. To the extend of Rs. 30,000, under s. 5(1)(xxiii) r/w s. of 45(d) of the WT Act. It was contended before the WTO that the Ganapathi Pulp and Pap .....

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..... me time under WT Act, s. 45 does not contain such exclusion. If the legislature has intentionally left out specific qualifications, it is not for the interpreting authorities to add or exclude, so as to reduce or to increase this scope of the sections. For an easy appreciation of the clause, we reproduce cl. (d) of s, 45 of the WT Act, 1957 : "45(d) Any company established with the object of carrying on an industrial undertaking in India in any case where the company is not formed by the splitting up, or the reconstruction of a business already in existence or by the transfer to a new business of any building, machinery or plant used in a business which was being previously carried on. Provided that the exemption granted by cl. (d) small apply to any such company as is referred to therein only for a period of five successive assessment years commending with the assessment year next following the date on which the company is established before the commencement of this Act, which period shall, in the case of a company established before the commencement of this Act, be computed in accordance with this Act from the date of its establishment as if this Act had been in force on an .....

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..... rge the scope of the taxing provision so as to give an added advantage to the assessee, if such advantage is not already specifically granted by the legislature. 12. In the instant case of the assessee, the importation of certain provisions of IT Act, 1961, so as to enlarge the scope of s. 45 (d) of the WT Act, 1957, adding the qualification in India, after the word 'used in a business which was being previously carried on" is contrary to the above principles laid down by the Supreme Court, stressed the learned Departmental Representative. 13. Replying to the contentions of the learned Departmental Representative, the learned counsel for the assessee submitted that the analogy adopted by the CWT(A) while interpreting s. 45(d) is correct. The learned authorised representative support the order of the first appellate authority and contended that well established principles of the IT Act and the judicial interpretations can always be imported to WT Act where certain ambiguity is apparent. The learned counsel also submitted that even without incorporating similar provision of the IT Act for the purpose of interpretation of s. 45 of the WT Act, it is necessary to look into the obj .....

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..... t instrument for the expression of human thought and, as pointed out by Lorad Denning, it would be ideal to expect every statutory provision to the "drafted with divine prescience and perfect clarity". We can do no better than repeat the famous words of judge Learned Hand when he said: ".......it is true that the words used, even in their literal sense, are the primary an ordinarily the most reliable source of interpreting the meaning of any writing be it a statute, a contract or anything else. But it is one of the surest indexes of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to made a fortress out of the dictionary; but to remember that statutes always have some purpose or object to accomplish, whose sympathetic and imaginative discovery is the surest guide to their meaning." We must not adopt a strictly literal interpretation of s. 52, sub-s.(2), but we must construe its language having regard to the object and purpose which the legislature had in view in enacting that provision and in the context of the setting in which it occurs. We cannot ignore the context and the collection of the provisions in which s. 52, sub-s.(2) appears, because, as pointed out by judge Learned Hand in .....

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