My father died and the officer reopened his assessment by serving the notice on only one of us, although he knew there were other heirs. Is that assessment valid against the estate?
No. The Gujarat High Court held that where a person dies leaving more than one legal representative, the Assessing Officer must serve the reassessment notice on all of them, so that the estate is completely represented; service on one leaves the estate only partially represented and the assessment does not bind it. The Court recognised three exceptions: where one representative manages the entire estate; where one appears with the express or implied consent of the others; and where the officer, after diligent and bona fide enquiry, believes those served to be the only representatives. None applied here, since Daulatram had administered only one bank account, he had objected to the notice, and the officer knew of the other heirs and made no enquiry.
Decided by the High Court (High Court of Gujarat; P.N. Bhagwati CJ) on 1970-10-09. It bears on section 24B(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 159, section 148 of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Reassessment & Reopening and Assessment & Scrutiny matters.
This is the leading statement of what complete representation of a deceased assessee's estate means, and it is directly transferable to section 159 of the 1961 Act and to notices under section 148 issued in the name of a dead assessee. Its most useful feature is that it does not leave the rule absolute: it identifies the three situations in which service on one representative suffices, so a practitioner can see at once whether his case is inside or outside them, and it shows how each is proved or disproved on the record. It also disposes of the fallback the department usually offers, that the assessment should at least be good against the representative who was served: the Court holds that an assessment of a deceased person's income cannot be valid against one representative and invalid against another, because otherwise, since section 24B(1) makes the tax recoverable from the estate in whosoever hands, an heir who never had notice and never had an opportunity to contest would be bound by it.
Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere.
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Chooharmal Wadhuram died leaving five legal representatives: his sons Daulatram and three others, and his widow Lilavati. Notices under section 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, read with section 24B(2), were issued to reopen his assessments for assessment years 1946-47 and 1947-48. They were addressed to 'Chooharmal Wadhuram, legal representatives - Daulatram and others', but were served only on Daulatram and not on the other representatives. Daulatram appeared and contested the proceedings, taking the objection that they were not validly initiated because the notices had been served on him alone. The Tribunal held that Daulatram had operated the account in his name with Messrs Narandas Parshottamdas, that the adjustments in that account were the result of negotiations between him and that firm, that he had therefore administered that part of the estate consisting of the amounts deposited in that account, and that service on him as legal representative was sufficient to bind the estate. Five questions were referred. The third was not pressed and the first, second and fourth were decided against the assessee when the reference was first heard. The fifth was held over because, in view of observations of the Supreme Court in First Additional Income-tax Officer v Mrs Suseela Sadanandan, a supplemental statement of the case was called for. That supplemental statement showed that a return of the deceased's income for assessment year 1953-54 had been filed by the widow, Bai Lilavati, and that an assessment order had been made on her as legal representative on 31 December 1953, long before the impugned notices were issued; and the Tribunal found that the Assessing Officer did not believe and could not possibly have believed Daulatram to be the sole legal representative, that he knew there were others, and that there was accordingly no occasion for and no enquiry, much less a diligent and bona fide one.
The fifth question was answered in the negative, with no order as to costs: the proceedings for assessment years 1946-47 and 1947-48 under section 34(1)(a) were not validly initiated by serving notices on Daulatram alone, there being admittedly other legal representatives of the deceased who were not served. The Court held that where an assessee dies leaving more than one legal representative, the officer must proceed to assess by serving notice on all of them, because otherwise there is no complete representation of the estate. None of the exceptions applied. There was nothing to show that Daulatram managed or administered the whole estate; the Tribunal's finding was that he had administered only the part consisting of the amounts in the one account, and the widow had earlier filed the return and been assessed as legal representative. There was no finding or material that he represented the estate with the consent, express or implied, of the others, and the fact that he appeared and contested did not show such consent, particularly as he objected to the want of service on the others. The third exception was negatived by the supplemental statement, since the officer knew of the other representatives and made no enquiry. The Court also rejected the Revenue's alternative contention that the assessment was at least valid as against Daulatram, holding that an assessment of a deceased person's income cannot be valid against one legal representative and invalid against another.
The Court began with the purpose of section 24B, introduced by Central Act XVIII of 1933 to cure the lacuna identified in Ellis C. Reid v CIT, where the Bombay High Court had held that a person dying after the commencement of the assessment year but before assessment left his executor free of liability and pending proceedings incapable of being continued. Sub-section (1) makes the legal representative liable to pay, out of the estate and to the extent it can meet the charge, the tax assessed as payable by the deceased or which would have been payable by him had he not died; as Hidayatullah J put it in Additional Income-tax Officer v E. Alfred, it covers all situations and contingencies and makes the liability absolute but limited to the estate. Sub-sections (2) and (3) supply the machinery. Sub-section (2), which applied because Chooharmal died before service of the section 34(1)(a) notice, requires the legal representative to comply on service of the notice, whereupon the officer may assess the total income of the deceased as if the legal representative were the assessee. The Court then went to the principle behind that fiction, taking from Salmond that the rights a dead man leaves behind vest in his representative, who bears the person of the deceased and in whom all inheritable rights and liabilities vest, inheritance being a legal and fictitious continuation of the personality of the dead man. Since the person to be assessed is dead, his liability is enforced against those who represent his entire person in relation to his estate. By section 13(2) of the General Clauses Act, 1897, the singular includes the plural, so 'legal representative' in section 24B(2) takes in a plurality. The Court drew on the Federal Court in Tirtha Lal v Bhusan Moyee Dasi, where Mahajan J held that the expression must be read in the plural when there are two or more, and all must be brought on record, and on the passage there approved from Sir Shadi Lal CJ in Muhammad Hassan v Inayat Hussain that what is required is the representation of the plenary interest of the deceased, whether through one person or several, so that there cannot be a partial representation; and on the Privy Council in Khiarajmal v Daim, where a sale in a suit in which the estate was not represented in law or in fact was held null and void, a question of substance and not of form. Against that background the Court read the observation of Subba Rao J in First Additional Income-tax Officer v Mrs Suseela Sadanandan, that where a person dies leaving more than one executor or heir the officer shall proceed to assess against all of them; and although the Supreme Court had said its observations were not intended as a final decision, the emphatic manner in which they were made, supported by a discussion of principle and authority, gave them great weight. The Court then tempered the general rule with three exceptions, all resting on the same principle of complete representation: where one representative manages the entire estate, as the Supreme Court had contemplated in Suseela Sadanandan; where one appears with the express or implied consent of the others, as that decision also contemplated; and where the officer, after diligent and bona fide enquiry, ascertains and serves those he finds to be the representatives, applying the civil law rule in Daya Ram v Shyam Sundari that a decision obtained with such representatives on record binds the entire estate. On the Revenue's fallback, the Court reasoned that if an assessment made on one representative bound the estate, section 24B(1) would make it recoverable from an heir who had neither notice nor an opportunity to contest, which the legislature could not have intended. Finally it distinguished E. Alfred, where the only question was whether a legal representative served with notice was an assessee against whom penalty could be imposed under section 46(1), the validity of the initiation having been assumed throughout.
if the whole interest of the deceased is not represented before the Income-tax Officer, it is difficult to see how the Income-tax Officer can proceeds to assess the total income
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Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppNo. The Gujarat High Court held that where a person dies leaving more than one legal representative, the Assessing Officer must serve the reassessment notice on all of them, so that the estate is completely represented; service on one leaves the estate only partially represented and the assessment does not bind it. The Court recognised three exceptions: where one representative manages the entire estate; where one appears with the express or implied consent of the others; and where the officer, after diligent and bona fide enquiry, believes those served to be the only representatives. None applied here, since Daulatram had administered only one bank account, he had objected to the notice, and the officer knew of the other heirs and made no enquiry. This was decided by the High Court (High Court of Gujarat; P.N. Bhagwati CJ) and bears on section 24B(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 159, section 148 of the Income Tax Act 1961. This is the leading statement of what complete representation of a deceased assessee's estate means, and it is directly transferable to section 159 of the 1961 Act and to notices under section 148 issued in the name of a dead assessee. Its most useful feature is that it does not leave the rule absolute: it identifies the three situations in which service on one representative suffices, so a practitioner can see at once whether his case is inside or outside them, and it shows how each is proved or disproved on the record. It also disposes of the fallback the department usually offers, that the assessment should at least be good against the representative who was served: the Court holds that an assessment of a deceased person's income cannot be valid against one representative and invalid against another, because otherwise, since section 24B(1) makes the tax recoverable from the estate in whosoever hands, an heir who never had notice and never had an opportunity to contest would be bound by it. If it applies to you, the first step is this: List every legal representative and show what each of them administers; the exception for a managing representative failed here because Daulatram had dealt only with one account while the widow had filed an earlier return for the deceased.
Chooharmal Wadhuram died leaving five legal representatives: his sons Daulatram and three others, and his widow Lilavati. Notices under section 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, read with section 24B(2), were issued to reopen his assessments for assessment years 1946-47 and 1947-48. They were addressed to 'Chooharmal Wadhuram, legal representatives - Daulatram and others', but were served only on Daulatram and not on the other representatives. Daulatram appeared and contested the proceedings, taking the objection that they were not validly initiated because the notices had been served on him alone. The Tribunal held that Daulatram had operated the account in his name with Messrs Narandas Parshottamdas, that the adjustments in that account were the result of negotiations between him and that firm, that he had therefore administered that part of the estate consisting of the amounts deposited in that account, and that service on him as legal representative was sufficient to bind the estate. Five questions were referred. The third was not pressed and the first, second and fourth were decided against the assessee when the reference was first heard. The fifth was held over because, in view of observations of the Supreme Court in First Additional Income-tax Officer v Mrs Suseela Sadanandan, a supplemental statement of the case was called for. That supplemental statement showed that a return of the deceased's income for assessment year 1953-54 had been filed by the widow, Bai Lilavati, and that an assessment order had been made on her as legal representative on 31 December 1953, long before the impugned notices were issued; and the Tribunal found that the Assessing Officer did not believe and could not possibly have believed Daulatram to be the sole legal representative, that he knew there were others, and that there was accordingly no occasion for and no enquiry, much less a diligent and bona fide one. The matter was decided on 1970-10-09 by the High Court (High Court of Gujarat; P.N. Bhagwati CJ). On those facts the High Court held as follows. The fifth question was answered in the negative, with no order as to costs: the proceedings for assessment years 1946-47 and 1947-48 under section 34(1)(a) were not validly initiated by serving notices on Daulatram alone, there being admittedly other legal representatives of the deceased who were not served. The Court held that where an assessee dies leaving more than one legal representative, the officer must proceed to assess by serving notice on all of them, because otherwise there is no complete representation of the estate. None of the exceptions applied. There was nothing to show that Daulatram managed or administered the whole estate; the Tribunal's finding was that he had administered only the part consisting of the amounts in the one account, and the widow had earlier filed the return and been assessed as legal representative. There was no finding or material that he represented the estate with the consent, express or implied, of the others, and the fact that he appeared and contested did not show such consent, particularly as he objected to the want of service on the others. The third exception was negatived by the supplemental statement, since the officer knew of the other representatives and made no enquiry. The Court also rejected the Revenue's alternative contention that the assessment was at least valid as against Daulatram, holding that an assessment of a deceased person's income cannot be valid against one legal representative and invalid against another.
The Court began with the purpose of section 24B, introduced by Central Act XVIII of 1933 to cure the lacuna identified in Ellis C. Reid v CIT, where the Bombay High Court had held that a person dying after the commencement of the assessment year but before assessment left his executor free of liability and pending proceedings incapable of being continued. Sub-section (1) makes the legal representative liable to pay, out of the estate and to the extent it can meet the charge, the tax assessed as payable by the deceased or which would have been payable by him had he not died; as Hidayatullah J put it in Additional Income-tax Officer v E. Alfred, it covers all situations and contingencies and makes the liability absolute but limited to the estate. Sub-sections (2) and (3) supply the machinery. Sub-section (2), which applied because Chooharmal died before service of the section 34(1)(a) notice, requires the legal representative to comply on service of the notice, whereupon the officer may assess the total income of the deceased as if the legal representative were the assessee. The Court then went to the principle behind that fiction, taking from Salmond that the rights a dead man leaves behind vest in his representative, who bears the person of the deceased and in whom all inheritable rights and liabilities vest, inheritance being a legal and fictitious continuation of the personality of the dead man. Since the person to be assessed is dead, his liability is enforced against those who represent his entire person in relation to his estate. By section 13(2) of the General Clauses Act, 1897, the singular includes the plural, so 'legal representative' in section 24B(2) takes in a plurality. The Court drew on the Federal Court in Tirtha Lal v Bhusan Moyee Dasi, where Mahajan J held that the expression must be read in the plural when there are two or more, and all must be brought on record, and on the passage there approved from Sir Shadi Lal CJ in Muhammad Hassan v Inayat Hussain that what is required is the representation of the plenary interest of the deceased, whether through one person or several, so that there cannot be a partial representation; and on the Privy Council in Khiarajmal v Daim, where a sale in a suit in which the estate was not represented in law or in fact was held null and void, a question of substance and not of form. Against that background the Court read the observation of Subba Rao J in First Additional Income-tax Officer v Mrs Suseela Sadanandan, that where a person dies leaving more than one executor or heir the officer shall proceed to assess against all of them; and although the Supreme Court had said its observations were not intended as a final decision, the emphatic manner in which they were made, supported by a discussion of principle and authority, gave them great weight. The Court then tempered the general rule with three exceptions, all resting on the same principle of complete representation: where one representative manages the entire estate, as the Supreme Court had contemplated in Suseela Sadanandan; where one appears with the express or implied consent of the others, as that decision also contemplated; and where the officer, after diligent and bona fide enquiry, ascertains and serves those he finds to be the representatives, applying the civil law rule in Daya Ram v Shyam Sundari that a decision obtained with such representatives on record binds the entire estate. On the Revenue's fallback, the Court reasoned that if an assessment made on one representative bound the estate, section 24B(1) would make it recoverable from an heir who had neither notice nor an opportunity to contest, which the legislature could not have intended. Finally it distinguished E. Alfred, where the only question was whether a legal representative served with notice was an assessee against whom penalty could be imposed under section 46(1), the validity of the initiation having been assumed throughout. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "if the whole interest of the deceased is not represented before the Income-tax Officer, it is difficult to see how the Income-tax Officer can proceeds to assess the total income"
It was decided by the High Court on 1970-10-09. Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere. A High Court decision binds the assessing officer, the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal within that state, and is persuasive elsewhere. If your assessment is in a different jurisdiction, check whether your own High Court has taken the same view before relying on it. On section 24B(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 159, section 148, the practical question is whether the facts of your own notice match the facts of this case closely enough for the same rule to apply.
It helps the taxpayer. The fifth question was answered in the negative, with no order as to costs: the proceedings for assessment years 1946-47 and 1947-48 under section 34(1)(a) were not validly initiated by serving notices on Daulatram alone, there being admittedly other legal representatives of the deceased who were not served. The Court held that where an assessee dies leaving more than one legal representative, the officer must proceed to assess by serving notice on all of them, because otherwise there is no complete representation of the estate. None of the exceptions applied. There was nothing to show that Daulatram managed or administered the whole estate; the Tribunal's finding was that he had administered only the part consisting of the amounts in the one account, and the widow had earlier filed the return and been assessed as legal representative. There was no finding or material that he represented the estate with the consent, express or implied, of the others, and the fact that he appeared and contested did not show such consent, particularly as he objected to the want of service on the others. The third exception was negatived by the supplemental statement, since the officer knew of the other representatives and made no enquiry. The Court also rejected the Revenue's alternative contention that the assessment was at least valid as against Daulatram, holding that an assessment of a deceased person's income cannot be valid against one legal representative and invalid against another. It arises in Reassessment & Reopening and Assessment & Scrutiny matters, on section 24B(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, section 159, section 148 of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by High Court of Gujarat; P.N. Bhagwati CJ. Before relying on it, read the source linked on this page and check whether it has since been distinguished, overruled or overtaken by an amendment to the Income Tax Act. In practice the steps that follow from it are these. Object to the want of notice at the first opportunity and on the record, since the Court treated the objection taken by the representative served as negativing any implied consent by the others. Ask what enquiry the officer made before serving; the third exception protects the department only where a diligent and bona fide enquiry was in fact made, and here the officer knew of the other heirs so no enquiry arose. Do not accept an argument that the order is at least good against the person served; on this reasoning an assessment of a deceased person's income is one indivisible assessment.
Still good law. A judgment of 9 October 1970 by P.N. Bhagwati CJ, applying the observations of the Supreme Court in First Additional Income-tax Officer v Mrs Suseela Sadanandan and the civil law rule in Daya Ram v Shyam Sundari. The source page records no case citing it. It construes sections 24B(2) and 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, which correspond in the 1961 Act to section 159, on the liability and representation of legal representatives, and to sections 147 and 148 for reopening; whether the reasoning has been applied to section 159 by later authority was not checked in this session, nor was any appeal against this judgment. No source could be cited for that finding. Checking whether an authority still stands matters as much as knowing what it held: a decision may be overruled on one point and survive on another, or the provision it interprets may have been amended since. Read the source and the editor's note on this page before relying on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal.
The judgment decides sections 24B(2) and 34(1)(a) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922; the corresponding provisions of the 1961 Act are section 159, which now carries the liability and the machinery for assessing a deceased person's income through his legal representative, and sections 147 and 148 for reopening. The Court itself did not consider the 1961 Act, and section 159(2)(b) is worded differently from section 24B(2), so the reasoning should be applied to a modern notice with that in mind. The batch line gave the provisions as 159, 24B(1) of the 1922 Act, 34(1)(a) of the 1922 Act and 148; the sub-section the judgment turns on is 24B(2), not 24B(1), which it discusses only for the recovery consequence. No law report citation appears on the harvested page and none is given in the batch line, so the report reference could not be established; the earlier judgment on the first four questions is referred to only as 'Chooharmal Wadhuram v Commissioner of Income-tax' without a citation, and it was not read in this session. The harvested text is poorly transcribed in places, with garbled words and missing citations for the decisions relied on, none of which was independently verified here. The Court answers only the fifth question; the first, second and fourth had already been decided against the assessee, and what became of the assessment after this answer is not recorded. This library shows the verification state of every entry openly. This entry has not yet been read in full by a chartered accountant. The summary reflects the sources listed on this page. Read the source before you rely on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
The fifth question was answered in the negative, with no order as to costs: the proceedings for assessment years 1946-47 and 1947-48 under section 34(1)(a) were not validly initiated by serving notices on Daulatram alone, there being admittedly other legal representatives of the deceased who were not served. The Court held that where an assessee dies leaving more than one legal representative, the officer must proceed to assess by serving notice on all of them, because otherwise there is no complete representation of the estate. None of the exceptions applied. There was nothing to show that Daulatram managed or administered the whole estate; the Tribunal's finding was that he had administered only the part consisting of the amounts in the one account, and the widow had earlier filed the return and been assessed as legal representative. There was no finding or material that he represented the estate with the consent, express or implied, of the others, and the fact that he appeared and contested did not show such consent, particularly as he objected to the want of service on the others. The third exception was negatived by the supplemental statement, since the officer knew of the other representatives and made no enquiry. The Court also rejected the Revenue's alternative contention that the assessment was at least valid as against Daulatram, holding that an assessment of a deceased person's income cannot be valid against one legal representative and invalid against another.
TaxSphere, “Chooharmal Wadhuram (Deceased), by legal representatives, v Commissioner of Income-Tax, Gujarat II”, https://taxnotice.vittsphere.com/caselaw/case/chooharmal-wadhuram-v-cit-notice-on-all-legal-representatives/ (validity last checked 2026-08-29)
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