Law: Wealth Tax Act, 1957

Section: 3

Section 3 of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957 - Charge of tax -Respondents filed writ petitions challenging constitutionality of Act on grounds that Parliament was not competent to include HUF in charging section 3 in view of provision in Entry 86 of List I of Seventh Schedule to Constitution and that provision relating to HUF was discriminatory and denied equal protection of laws and was, therefore, hit by article 14 of Constitution - High Court held that there was discrimination as between HUF and Muslim Mopla Tarwads which were also undivided families and, therefore, charging section in so far as it governed undivided family was hit by article 14 of constitution - Whether since case for application or otherwise of article 14 was not properly put before High Court by either side, orders of High Court in that respect had to be set aside and matter was to be remanded to it for determination of question of applicability of article 14 to instant petition - Held, yes FACTS The respondents filed writ petitions before the High Court challenging the constitutionality of the Wealth-tax Act, and prayed for the quashing of the wealth-tax assessments made in their cases. The main contentions of the respondents before the High Court with respect to the constitutionality of the Act were two-fold, namely (1) that Parliament was not competent to include Hindu undivided families in the charging section 3 in view of the provision in Entry 86 of List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution and (2) that the provision relating to Hindu undivided families was discriminatory and denied equal protection of laws and was, therefore, hit by article 14 of the Constitution. The High Court held on the first question that Parliament was competent to include Hindu undivided families in section 3 of the Act. On the second question, the High Court held that there was discrimination as between Hindu undivided families and Muslim Mopla tarwads which were also undivided families and, therefore, the charging section in so far as it governed undivided families was hit by article 14. On revenue's appeal to the Supreme Court : HELD These cases were to be remanded to the High Court for further…

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