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TMI Blog1945 (8) TMI 11X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... and absolute occupancy fields in mauza Waregaon in the Nagpur district. After providing for certain legacies to his wife and others he left the residue of the estate to the Nagpur University earmarked for the teaching of applied science and chemistry to the Hindu students domiciled for not less than six years in the Central Provinces and Berar. Letters of Administration (Exhibit D-4) were granted to the Nagpur University by the Court of the Judicial Commissioner on the 3rd November, 1931. * * * * The present suit was filed by Buchibai on the 14th September, 1932. She alleged in the plaint that Laxminarayan and Gangadhar Rao took as tenants-in-common, under Kakolams will, property worth more than a lakh of rupees which formed t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ound by that compromise because her agreement to it had been induced by undue influence and fraud. The lower Court held that Laxminarayan and Gangadhar Rao formed a Hindu joint family and acquired the estate in dispute as such and that there had been no disruption so that on the death of Gangadhar Rao, R. B. Laxminarayan became the sole owner by survivorship. It also held that the agreement of Buchibai to the compromise of the 15th September, 1928, had not been induced by undue influence or fraud, that it was validly registered, and that it was binding on her. It accordingly dismissed her claim. Against that decision Buchibai has preferred this appeal. At a late stage of the trial the plaintiff produced certified copies of a statement ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... quire any public servant to produce before it any such document or to give evidence before it in respect thereof; sub-section (2) provides that any public servant disclosing such particulars shall be punishable. The direction that such document shall be treated as confidential is a direction to officials of the Income-tax Department, and in our opinion it is open to an assessee to waive that right and to give evidence, if the desires, of particulars contained in such a record, as was held in Rama Rao v. Venkataramayya. There is nothing in Section 54 which prohibits the giving of such evidence; the section merely directs officials of the Income-tax Department to treat such documents as confidential and prohibits the Court from requiring publ ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ve a copy of it, but the assessee or any partner in a firm to whose income the return relates or any adult member of a Hindu undivided family to whose income the return relates will, in practice, be allowed to do so. Statements recorded or orders passed by Income-tax Officers are, as we have said, public documents, and there is no express provision in the Manual dealing with the right to inspect or obtain copies of such documents. At page 351 however it is stated that all copies certified to be true copies by officers of Income-tax Department are liable to stamp duty if they are chargeable to court-fee, and there is a provision for charging court fees for copies of orders. In actual practice an assessee is, we understand, allowed to inspect ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... are official records of undoubted authenticity which may assist the Court to decide rightly the issue before it. It has been contended by the learned counsel that the defendant would have been placed in an unfair position if these documents had been admitted in evidence at the stage when they were produced. The defendants case was primarily that the entire estate was Laxminarayans self-acquired property, and alternatively that it was the joint family property of Laxminarayan and Gangadhar Rao. In Exhibit A-2 Laxminarayan is recorded as stating on the 17th August, 1922 :- I and my brother Mr. D. G. Gangadhar Rao are separate and our shares are also separate. We do not form a joint Hindu family though we live in one house. The Assist ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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