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TMI Blog1960 (9) TMI 8X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed Aloo. It was stated, though there was no evidence thereof, that Bai Jerbanoo left an estate worth about Rs. 2,10,000 when she died. The appellant was a minor at the time of his mother's death. He had two uncles then, Phirozeshaw, and Kaikhusroo. Phirozeshaw was the eldest member of the family. On his mother's death the appellant's share of the estate was Rs. 70,000. Phirozeshaw took charge of it and made investments. He died on December 12, 1945. Kaikhusroo, younger brother of Phirozeshaw and one of the executors of his will, took charge of the estate of Phirozeshaw. When he opened a safe belonging to Phirozeshaw he found a packet with the name of the appellant on it. That packet contained high denomination currency notes of the value of Rs. 87,500. On January 24, 1946, the appellant tendered those notes for encashment and made a declaration which was then necessary and in that declaration he said : " Legacy from my mother who died in 1933 when I was minor and money whereof was invested from time to time by my father and late uncle, Phirozeshaw, who recently died." When the appellant received a notice from the Income-tax Officer to submit a return of his income for the relev ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... money to the assessee's father. The affidavit assures us that the declaration regarding high denomination notes was made, on the information given him by his father. The assessee-son nowhere refers to any 'packet.' Indeed, the theory of 'packet' was pronounced by the executor, Kaikhusroo, only when he appeared before the Income-tax Officer on February 22, 1952. (iii) In his statement dated February 22, 1952, Mr. Kaikhusroo says that he 'found an envelope containing Rs. 87,500. I took charge of this money and handed over the money to Homi'. Before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, H Range, the same Mr. Kaikhusroo later on said : ' I handed over the packets as they were. I did not count the notes or verify the contents.' Some of the answers given as to 'receipts' and 'inventory' by the executor, Kaikhusroo, show that he did not take even the reasonable precautions that an ordinary person would take, not to talk of an executor." The Tribunal then expressed its conclusion thus : " We have, in these circumstances, no hesitation whatever in holding that the assessee has miserably failed to explain satisfactorily the source of the sum of Rs. 87,500. It is properly taxed as in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Income-tax Officer, D-II Ward, Bombay, on February 22, 1952, in which she indicated the circumstances how she also received a sum of Rs. 85,000 from her uncle, Phirozeshaw, before the latter's death. She further stated that she also submitted a return to the Income-tax Officer but was not subjected to any assessment on the sum received. The argument of learned counsel for the appellant is that it was not a relevant consideration as to why Phirozeshaw did not hand over the money to Bai Aloo in 1939 or in 1944, and if Bai Aloo's statements were to be taken into consideration, they were in favour of the appellant inasmuch as no assessment was made on Bai Aloo in respect of the sum she had received. We do not consider that the circumstances referred to by the Tribunal in connection with Bai Aloo's statement were irrelevant. What the Tribunal had to consider was the correctness or otherwise of a story in which the mother was stated to have left Rs. 2,10,000 out of which the heirs got one-third share each. The Tribunal had to consider each aspect of the story in order to judge of its probability and from that point of view it was a relevant consideration as to why Bai Aloo's money was n ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ich showed that the appellant was a student till 1950 and after seeing the certificates the Tribunal should not have said--- " We were also told, etc." According to learned counsel this showed that the finding of the Tribunal was coloured by prejudice. We are unable to agree. Even if it be taken that the appellant satisfactorily proved that he was a student till 1950, we do not think that it makes any real difference as to the main question at issue, which was whether the appellant received the sum of Rs. 70,000 from the estate of his mother, later increased by investments to Rs. 87,500 in 1945. The Tribunal rightly pointed out that no evidence was given of the value of the estate left by the mother, though there was some evidence of what the mother received from the estate of her father, Sanjana ; nor was there any evidence of the investments said to have been made which led to an addition to the original sum of Rs. 70,000. It has been argued that it was a mere surmise on the part of the Tribunal to say that in a place like Bombay a person may earn when he learns, Even if the Tribunal is wrong in this respect, we do not think that it is a matter of any consequence. We must read ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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