Law:

Section:

Section 9(1) of the estate duty act, 1953-Gifts-Made within certain period before death-Less than a month before her death deceased made gift to a charitable institution-Whether said gift includible in deceased's dutiable estate in view of section 9-Held, on facts, yes Facts The deceased died on 14-9-1966. On 29-8-1966, i.e., less than one month prior to her death, she had given a cash donation of Rs. 1 lakh for public charitable purposes to an institution. The Assistant Controller included this sum in the dutiable estate of the deceased in view of section 9. Both the AAC and the Tribunal rejected appeals against such inclusion. On reference, the accountable person contended (i) that a donation to a charitable institution was different from a gift for purposes of section 9(1); and (ii) that a bona fide gift or donation was outside the purview of section 9(1). Held It true that when amounts are given to public institutions by way of charity, they are normally referred as donations, but there is no warrant for saying that in common parlance or in legal terminology, gifts and donations can be regarded as mutually exclusive. It is only a monetary gift to an institution which is called a donation. Donation is thus only a type of gift. This is borne out by the definition of the term 'donation' contained in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. The dictionary definition clearly shows that 'donation' is merely regarded as a category of 'gift' and thus a donation is clearly included in the term 'gift' used in section 9. There was no merit in the contention of the accountable person that as the gift or donation was made bona fide by the deceased, the provisions of sub-section ( 1) of section 9 were not applicable to such donation at all. This submission involved a clear misreading of the provisions of section 9(1). A plain reading of sub-section (7) of section 9 shows that in order not to be included in the property which passes on the death of the deceased, the gift inter vivos must have been made bona fide and made at least one year before the death of the deceased. In case of a gift to charity, the period prescribed was 6 months instead of one year. Accordingly, the impugned…

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