Raja Bahadur Visheshwara Singh and Othehs. v. Commissioner of Income-Tax, Bihar and Orissa

Kapur J. 1946-47 Rs. 1,57,000 and odd 1947-48 Rs. 1,33,000 and odd 1948-49 Rs. 76,000 and odd The Income-Tax Officer held these. to be liable to income-tax as business profits. On appeal the Appel-late Assistant Commissioner excluded the profits for the years 1944-45 and 1945-46 but for the years 1946-4 7 to 1948-49 the assessments were upheld. Both parties appealed to the Appellate Tribunal. It held on the evidence that the appellant was to be regarded as a dealer in shares and securities and therefore the profits were assessable to income-tax. The appellant applied for a case to be stated under s. 66(1) of the Income-tax Act. This application was dismissed but the High Court made an order under s. 66(2) of the Income-tax Act to state a case on two questions of law. The questions were as follows:

(1) Whether in the circumstances of the case, there is material to support the finding of the Appellate Tribuna.l that the assessee was a dealer in shares and securities with respect to each of the accounts and, therefore, liable to be taxed? I (2) Whether, having regard to the findings of the Appellate Tribunal in respect of 1941/42 assess-ment, it was open to the Appellate Tribunal in the present case to hold that the profits and the transac-tions of sale and purchase of shares and securi-ties amounted to profits of business and so liable to be ta,xed?

The High Court held that the facts and circumstances which the Tribunal took into consideration in arriv-ing at the finding were the material before the Tribunal to support the finding and the first question was answered in the affirmative and therefore against i96o the appellant. I~ re~ard to the seco?-d question .the Raja Bahadur answer was agam m the affirmative and agamst Visheshwarn Singh the appellant who has come to this Court by special s. Others leave. v.

It was argued on behalf of the appellant that he Commissioner of was not carrying on the business of buying and Income-ta~, se II. mg shares b ut his . pure h ases an d sa l es were m . t h e Bihar &- O"ssa nature of investments of his surplus monies and Kapur J. therefore the excess amounts received by sales were capital receipts being merely surplus and not profits.

It was also submitted that the appellant being a zamindar the buying and selling of shares was not his normal activity; that he had a large income and it was his surplus income which he was investing in buy-ing the shares and whenever he found it profitable he converted his holdings and securities and for a number of years from 1931-32 he had been buying shares but he did not sell them; that the very nature of invest-ments was such that they had to be constantly changed so that the monies invested may be used to the best advantage of the investor; and that the sales were really for the purpose of re-employing the monies that he had invested to his best advantage.

Counsel for the appellant relied upon certain cases in support of his submission that the first question raised was of a wider amplitude and that it had been erroneously restricted by tha High Court and that its true import was the same as of the questions which were raised in the following cases decided by this Court, He relied on G. Venkataswami Naidu & Go.

v. The Commissioner of Income-tax (1), Oriental Invest-r ment Go., Ltd. v. The Commissioner of Income-tax,

Bombay (2). In the former case the assessee purchased four plots of land adjacent to the mills of which he was the Managing Agent. On various dates and about five years later sold them to the mills in w hinh h.e rea-lized about Rs. 43,000 in excess of his purchase price.

This was treated by the Income-tax authorities as purchase with a view to sell at a profit. The question referred was whether there was material for the

r96o assessment of that amount as income arising from an

adventure in the nature of trade. The High Court Rhajah Baha~~' h held that that was the nature of the transaction. On V is es wara . .Jing appeal this , Court held that before the Tribunal could

e,. oehm

v. come to the conclusion that it was an adventure in Commissioner of the nature of trade, it had to take into consideration

Income-tax, the legal requirements associated with the concept of Bihar cS, Orissa t h e tra d e or b usmess · an d t h at such a question was a

Kapur (· mixed question of law and fact. It was also held that

where a person invests money in land intending to hold it. and then sells it at a profit it is a case of capital ac-cretion and not profit derived from an adventure, in the nature of trade but if a purchase is made solely and exclusively with the intention to resell it at profit and the purchaser never had any intention to hold the property for himself there would be a strong pre-sumption that the transaction is in the nature of trade but that was also a rebuttable presumption. The purchase in the absence of any rebutting evi-dence was held to fall in the latter category, i.e., ad-venture in the nature of trade. In the Oriental Invest-ment case (1) the assessee was an investment company. It had purchased certain shares and sold them and qua those shares it claimed to be treated as an in-vestor and not a dealer on the ground that it did not carry on any business in the purchase and sale of shares. The assessee's applications for reference to the High Court were rejected on the ground that no question of law arose out of the order of the Tribunal. It was held that the question whether the assessee's business amounted to dealing in shares and in pro-perties or was merely an investment was a mixed question of Jaw and fact and the legal effect of the facts found was a question of law and this Court ordered the case to be stated on two questions that it framed. One of the questions was similar to the first question in the present case but tile second question was a wider one, i.e., whether the profits and losses arising from the sale of shares etc. could be taxed as business profits.

The question which the High Coqrt had to answer in the present case was a narrow one and the answer '960 t~ that.on the m.ateri~l before the ~ourt was r~ghtl,v Raja Bahadur given m the affirmative. But even if the quest10n 1s Vis/,;shwa.a Singh taken to be wider in amplitude, on the materials & Others produced and on the facts proved the appellant must v. be held to have been rightly assessed. Counsel for the Commission" of appellant argued that the amounts received by him in Income.tax, the accounting years were in the nature of capital Bihar 1§. Orissa accretions and therefore not assessable. In support, Kapur J. Counsel for the appellant relied on the following cases:-Raja Bahadur Kamakshya Nar-ain Singh v. The Commissioner of Income-Tax, Bihar & Orissa (') where Lord Wright observed that profits r.ealised by the sale of shares may be capital if the seller is an ordinary investor changing his securities but in some instances it may be income if the seller of the shares ia an in-vestment company or an insurance company. The other cases relied upon were Californian Copper Syn-dicate Limited v. Harris ('); Cooper v. Stubbs (');

Leeming v. Jones(') and Edwards v. Bairstow & Harrison('). It is not necessary to discuss these cases because the principle applicable to such transac-tions is that when an owner of an ordinary investment chooses to realise it and obtains a higher price for it than he originally acquired it at, the enhanced price is not a profit assessable to income tax but where as in the present case what is done is not merely a rea-lisation or a change of investment but an act done in what is truly the carrying on of a business the amount recovered as appreciation will be assessable.

In July 1948 the appellant had borrowed, though without interest, a larg(l sum of money to the extent of about Rs. 10,00,000, no doubt from his brother.

He started a new account calling it No. 2 Investment Account. For the .asse~sment years under appeal shares purchased and sold were of a large magnitude ranging from Rs. 4·68 lacs to Rs. 69 thousands in what is called the first account and from Rs. 9,64,000 or even if Port Trust Debentures are excluded

(I) [1943] L.R.70 I.A. 180, 194. (2) [1904] 5 T.C. 159.

296 SUP]:tEME COURT REPORTS [1961]

'960 Rs. 3,60,000 to Rs. 30,000. The magnitude and the Raja Bahadur freq~ency and th~ rii.tio of sales to. purchases and total Visheshw"'a Singh holdrngs was evidence from wh10h the Income-tax

& others Appellate Tribunal could come to the conclusion as

. v: to the true nature of the activities of the appellant.. Commissioner of The principle which is applicable to the present case

Income-tax. is what we have said aliove .and on the evidence which Bihar 6-Orissa was before the Tribunal, i.e., the substantial nature of

Kapur ;. the transactions, the manner in which the books had

been maintained, the magnitude of the shares pur-chased and sold and the ratio between the purchases and sales and the holdings, if on this material the Tribunal came to the conclusion that there was mate-trial to support the finding that the appellant was dealing in shares as a business, it could not be inter-fered with by the High Court and in our opinion it rightly answered the question against the appellant in the affirmative.

The second question is wholly unsubstantial. There is no such thing as res judicata in income-tax matters. The Appellate Tribunal has placed in a tabulated form the activities of the appellant showing the buy-ing and selling and the magnitude of holdings and it cannot be said therefore that it was not op,en tu the Appellate Tribunal to give the finding that it did. In our opinion the High Court rightly held against the appellant. The appeals are therefore dismissed with costs. One hearing fee in this Court.

Appeals dismissed.

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeals Nos . .. 11aJa Hahad~r 137 to 141 of 1958. J 1Sh'5hwaraSrngh- & Others Appeals by special leave from the judgment and v. order dated April 26, 1956 of the Patna High Court in Cu111mis~io11er of Misc.Judicial Cases Nos. 362 to 366 of 1955. J11cv;ne~tax, B:har ~-- Orissa A. V. Viswanatha Sastri, S. ](. }1Jajumdar and I. N. Shroff, for the appelhtnts Nos. 2 to 4 (In all the appeals).

Harda.yal Hardy and D. Gupta, for the respondent (In all the appeals).

1960. December 15. The Jucjgment of the Court was delivered by

KAPUR, J.-The assessee who is the appellant has Kapur J. brought these five appeals agltinst the judgment and order of the High Court of Pa,tna by which it answered the two questions stated under s. 66(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act against the appellant and in fiwour of the Commissioner of Income-tax.

The appellant is the son of the late Malrnraj:tdhi-rn,ja of Darblurnga and the brother of :the present l\Iaharaja. The fo.ther died in 1929 and the appellant was given by way of maintenance the Estate .of lfaj-w•gar. He \ras also given a yearly allowance of Hs. 30,000 ,,-hich was later raised to Rs. 48,000 .. From 1929, the appellant invested his cash surplus in shares and securities, the account of which was en-tered in what is called Account Book No. 1. From the yc>tr 1930 onwards up to the year 1941-42 the appelim1t purchased a ln,rge number of shares and securities which by the accountir.g year 1941-42 were of the value of Rs. 14'91 lacs. During this period the appellant sold shares and securities in the account-ing years 1936-37 and 1939-40 of the value of 1·48.

lacs and l ·69 lacs respectively. He made certain amount of profits on these sales but under orders of the Commissioner of Income-tax in the former case and of the Income-tax Tribunal in the latter case, these sums were not assessed to income-tax. In the

960 accounting years 1942-43 to 1946-47 the appellant '

Raja Bahadur purchased and sold some shares and securities. The Visheshwarn Singh entries in Account No. 1 stood as follows:-

<f>. Others

v. Total value of Total cost of Total cost of shares Comniissioner o/ shares & securities shares and and securities sold

Income-tax, Year at cost at the securities pur-during the year.

& beginning of the chased during the Bihar Or issa year. year.

Kapur j. r350 Fs. Rs. r f66 lacs Nil Rs. 4·68 lacs

r942-43 (r3 items) r35r _ Fs. Rs. 9·98 lacs Rs. 2·37 lacs. Rs. 4·r6 lacs r943-44 (4 items) (r2 items) Rs. 3•05 lacs. Rs. 0·69 lacs r352 Fs. Rs. 8·20 lacs (2 items) and (3 items) r944-45 other call money.

r353 Fs. Rs. ro·52 lacs Nil Rs. ro3 lacs 1945-46- (3 items) r354 Fs" Rs. 9·50 lacs Rs. IS 83 lacs. Rs. 3·39 lacs 1946-47 (9 items) (2 items) and in all these years the appellant made profits which varied from Rs. 2,56,959 in the accounting year 1942-43 to Rs. 33,174 in the accounting year 1946-47. On July 16, 1940, the appellant arranged a.n over-draft with the Mercantile Bank of India and actually withdrew Rs. 10,000 for the purchase of aha.res. But his brother the M:aharaja advanced to him witpout interest Rs. 10 lacs and thus the overdraft was pa.id off. A new Account was opened in the books of the appellant named No. 2 Investment Account which contained all entries in regard to shares purchased a.nd sold from out of the money borrowed from the M:aharajadhiraj. In this account entries of the diffe-rent yea.rs were as follows:-

Total value of Total cost of Total cost of shares 1960 shares & securities shares and and z.ecurities sold Year. at cost at 'the securities pur-during the year.

Raja Bahadur beginning of the chased during the year. year. Visheshwara Singh & Others .1347 F~ Nil Rs. 6·05 lacs Nil v. 1939-40 (8 items) Comniissioner of 1348 Fs. Rs. 6-05 lacs Rs. 6·2 r lacs Rs. r78 lacs Incon1e-tax, (32 items) (1 item) Bihar & Orissa 1940-41 1349 Fs. Rs. 10·47 l,acs Nil Nil Kapur ]. 1941-42 Rs. o 24 lacs Rs. y6o I 1350 Fs. Rs. 10·55 lacs (I item) lacs i I 1942-43 (Darbhanga (z items) I Sugar) I I Rs. 2·29 lacs Rs. 3·60 I 1351 Fs. Rs. rso lacs (I item) lacs 1943-44 (Darbhanga (9 items) 1 Sugar) I 1352 Fs~ Rs. 6· 49 lacs Nil Rs. r25 I Under 1944-45 lacs > Ap- (3 items) I peal.

I Rs. 9·65 lacs Rs. 0·30 I 1353 Fs. Rs. 5·23 lacs (1 item) lacs I 1945-46 (Port Trust (1 item) I I Deb.) I 1354 Fs. Rs. II ·04 lacs Rs. 9·65 I 1946-47 I<s. 14·60 lacs (5 items) lacs I (1 item) ! I (Port Trust Deb.) j The High Court divided the transactions of the I appellant into three periods, i.e., assessment years

1930-31 to 1940-41, 1941-42 to 1943-44 and 1944-45 to 1948-49. In the first period as the statement of ac-count shows two sales were effected in which there was a profit which the appellant claimed as apprecia-tion of capital. Both those sums were held by the Income-tax authorities in the one case and the In-come-tax Appellate Tribunal in the other to be exempt from assessment as being conversion of invest-ments. Similarly during the second period also the sum of Rs. 39,325 for the assessment year 1942-43

292 SUPREME COURT REPOR.TS [1961]

'96" was held not to be taxable. Thus in the second Raja Bahadur period the a.ssessee ~as he!d n~t to be carrying on Visheshwara Singh any trade. In the third per10d, 1.e., the assessment

& 0,1,,rs years 1944-45 to 1948-49 the profits made by the

v. appellant from purchase and sale of shares were as· Cominissioner of follows:-

lncome-ta~. 1944-45 Rs. 2,62,000 and odd Bihar & Orissa 1945-46 Rs. 3,95,000 and odd