9911796707
TMI Blog1971 (4) TMI 4X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... reproduced as not relevant). The assessee owns a house at 15A, Aurangazeb Road, New Delhi, and has been occupying it for her own residence from 1959 onwards. Her husband, Bhai Mohan Singh, has also been residing with the assessee as a member of her family from 1959. Bhai Mohan Singh, as the working director in Messrs. Lepetti Rambaxy Laboratories (Private) Ltd., was entitled to rent free accommodation from the company. As the company could not provide him with rent-free accommodation, it paid him Rs. 1,875 per month as compensation for its inability to provide him with a rent-free house. As Bhai Mohan Singh lived with his wife in 15A, Aurangazeb Road, he passed on this amount of Rs. 1,875 per month to her. In the assessment year 1963-64, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... see. (2) Even if the husband of the assessee was a member of her family, the use of the house by the assessee was not exclusive. The Tribunal, however, rejected the second contention of the revenue on the ground that the use of the house by the assessee did not cease to be exclusive merely because her husband and the family lived in it with her. As regards the first contention, the Tribunal found that whatever might have been the arrangement and agreement, between Bhai Mohan Singh and the company and whatever might have been the reasons for the payment of Rs. 1,875 per month by Bhai Mohan Singh to the assessee, Bhai Mohan Singh occupied the house since 1959 and continued to occupy the same even during the year in which the appeal was he ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... her. If the ownership of the house belongs to the assessee, then it is primarily the assessee as the owner who is using the house. The members of her family living with her only in their capacity as members of the family are not using the house in their own right. Their residence with the assessee, therefore, by itself does not mean that the house is not being used by the assessee herself. The first requirement may, therefore, be said to have been satisfied in the present case. The use of the house by the assessee has to be " exclusive ". Exclusiveness in this context does not mean loneliness. It does not require that the assessee should live alone in the house. The physical residence of her family with her without any legal right to shar ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... le to provide a residence to him. This money was, therefore, in the nature of a house-rent allowance or compensation in lieu of a rent-free house paid by the company to Bhai Mohan Singh. The money was impressed with this character when it passed from the company to Bhai Mohan Singh. As it was Bhai Mohan Singh's income, he was free to spend it or do with it what he liked. If he had done so, the capacity in which he resided in the house would have continued to be the same, namely, as a member of the assessee's family. If he had paid any other amount of money to his wife for any other purpose then also the explanation for such payment would have to be considered and the mere fact of such payment by itself would not have changed the capacity or ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... : " I want to make the point that there are many meanings of the word 'possession' ; that possession can only be usefully defined with reference to the purpose in hand ; and that possession may have one meaning in one connection and another meaning in another. " In the context of section 5(1)(iv), the use of the house and its exclusiveness have relevance not merely to the physical fact of residence but also to the capacity or the right in which a person uses the house as a residence. While the fullest right of ownership of the house was in the assessee, a smaller right of an invitee paying consideration for his residence inhered in Bhai Mohan Singh. The user of the house by the assessee was, therefore, shared by her with Bhai Mohan Sing ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to a maximum is exempted because agricultural income is not taxable under the Income-tax Act or the Wealth-tax Act. Under section 5(1)(v) the rights under any patent or copyright not held as assets of a business and not yielding any income or benefit are exempted. Under section 5(1)(vi) the right or interest of the assessee in a policy of insurance, the money covered by which has not become due and payable to the assessee, is exempted. Similar reasons explain the exemption of the assets covered by the rest of the clauses of section 5(1). What is signified by the words " residential purposes " is not merely the living of the assessee in the house but also the necessary implication that the house is not used otherwise than as a mere residenc ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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