Law:

Section:

Section 34 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953 [As amended by the Estate Duty (Amendment) Act, 1958] - Aggregation of estate - Whether section 34(1)(c) enables aggregation of interest of male lineal descendants for purposes of determining rate at which estate duty is leviable on principle value of deceased's interest - Held, yes - Whether it cannot be said that in guise of such aggregation section 34(1)(c) brings male lineal descendants to charge and converts same from status of machinery section to that of charging section - Held, yes - Whether object of Act, is to reduce inequalities in distribution of wealth, whereas object of enacting section 34(1)(c) is to remove disparity in incidence of estate duty on estates of persons belonging to those governed Mitakshara Marumakkattayam or Aliyasantana in one hand and those governed by Dayabhaga or other personal laws, which do not recognise acquisition of interest by birth, on other hand and as such amendment by which section 34(1)(c) was inserted does not only help in achieving object of removing disparity to some extent but also in ultimate purpose of removing unequal distribution of wealth - Held, yes - Whether, therefore, section 34(1)(c) does not violate article 14 of Constitution - Held, yes FACTS Apart from self-acquired individual properties, the deceased held certain ancestral properties in the capacity of karta of the joint Hindu undivided family. The Estate Duty Officer, acting under section 34(1)(c), clubbed the value of the interest of the deceased in the joint family with that of the other coparceners and determined the rate of the estate duty payable on the property passing on his death. The Zonal Controller and the Tribunal dismissed the accountable persons' appeals. If the shares of the male lineal descendants were not aggregated for rate purposes then the duty payable on the share of the deceased, which passed on his death, would have been much less. Consequently, the petitioner filed the instant writ petition challenging the excess levy of the estate duty on the ground that the provisions of section 34(1)(c) providing for aggregation of the shares of lineal descendants with that of the deceased are ultra…

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/digixyei/sldsystempk.com/view/master-layout/view_case.php on line 492