Law:

Section:

(a) Bengal Agricultural Income Tax Act, 1944--Section 6 (7)--Words "accrue", "receive" and "including" meaning of--Allowances and deductions--Collection charges on account of cesses is not admissible deduction from total agricultural income. (b) Interpretation of statutes- --- Fiscal statutes--Only the letter of law is to be looked into-No intendment, equity or presumption. Cap Brandy Syndicate v, Inland Revenue Commissioner (1921) 1 K.B. 64 and Tenant v. Smith (1892) A.C. 150 ref. JUDGMENT ABDUL RASHID, C.J.--I agree with my learned brother Cornelius and hold that the assessee is not entitled to any deduction by way of allowance as collection charges on account of cesses. The appeal is allowed with costs. SHAHABUDDIN, J.--I also agree and have nothing to add. CORNELIUS, J.--This appeal which is brought before this Court by the Commissioner of Agricultural Income Tax, East Bengal, with the leave of the Dacca High Court, raises a question regarding the true construction of clause (7) of Section 6 of the Bengal Agricultural Income Tax Act. 1944, as in force to East Bengal. The question was raised by an assessee, the Hon'ble Rai Harendra Nath Choudhury, in respect of his assessment for the year 1944-45. The amount assessed by the Agricultural Income Tax Officer had been reduced on appeal by the Assistant Commissioner and a further appeal to the Agricultural Income Tax Appellate Tribunal being unsuccessful, the assessee obtained from the Tribunal a Reference to the High Court under Section 63 of the Act to obtain answer to two questions of which only the second is relevant in this appeal, and is reproduced below:- "Whether, the assessee was entitled to an allowance under Section 6 (7) of the Act in respect of his collection of cesses under the Cess Act and the Primary Education Act." A Division Bench of the High Court after hearing both parties answered this question in the affirmative. Before stating the reasons given by the learned Judges for their opinion it is desirable that the relevant provisions of the Act should be noticed and reproduced to the extent necessary. The Act is expressed in the preamble to provide for imposing tax on agricultural income derived…

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