My client received ancestral property on a partition with his father and brothers. His family is himself, his wife and two minor daughters — no son. The officer says that with no second male member he must be assessed as an individual. Is that right?
No. The Supreme Court held there is no warrant for the contention that there must be at least two male members to form a Hindu undivided family as a taxable unit. The expression "Hindu Undivided Family" in the Wealth Tax Act is used in the sense in which a Hindu joint family is understood in the personal law of Hindus; under that law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters; and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu undivided family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members. The appeals were allowed with costs and the status was held to have been rightly determined by the Tribunal as that of a Hindu undivided family. THE ACT CONSTRUED IS THE WEALTH-TAX ACT, 1957.
Decided by the Supreme Court (J.C. Shah J, V. Ramaswami J and A.N. Grover J (judgment delivered by Ramaswami J)) on 1969-03-07, reported as Civil Appeals Nos. 1477 to 1479 of 1968; 1970 AIR 14; 1969 SCR (3) 882; 74 ITR 190. It bears on section Wealth-tax Act 1957 s.3, section 2(31) of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Assessment & Scrutiny and How Tax Law Is Read matters.
This is the decision that fixes the composition side of the family status, and it is the necessary complement to C. Krishna Prasad v. CIT. Krishna Prasad holds that a single person is not a family; Narendranath holds that a family does not need two males. Put together, the requirement is plurality of MEMBERS. What made the difference on the facts was the character of the property: the wealth returned consisted of ancestral property received, or deemed to have been received, by the appellant on partition with his father and brothers — property in which his wife and daughters had rights of maintenance and in which a son born to him would take an interest by birth — not property he had acquired for himself. That distinction is the one the reader has to carry into his own case, because the library's other authority on this ground, Surjit Lal Chhabda v. CIT, concerns a man who threw his own SELF-ACQUIRED property into the hotchpot of a family consisting of himself, his wife and an unmarried daughter, and it went the other way. Note the limits of what is decided here: the Act construed is the Wealth-tax Act, 1957, the assessment years are 1957-58 to 1959-60, and the Court is construing the expression "Hindu undivided family" as a unit of assessment in that Act by reference to the personal law. The decision predates the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005, and says nothing about whether the daughters were coparceners — the whole point being that they did not need to be for the family to exist.
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The appellant's father, N.V. Rangarao, held an impartible estate called the Munagala Estate in the Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. The estate was abolished under the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 and compensation under section 45 of that Act was paid severally to the appellant, his father and his brothers. Other properties of the joint family of the appellant, his father and brothers were also partitioned between them from time to time. The assets in issue consisted of investments made from the compensation amount in securities and shares and of other assets such as bank deposits. For the assessment years 1957-58, 1958-59 and 1959-60 the appellant filed returns in the status of a Hindu undivided family. His family at the material time consisted of himself, his wife and his two minor daughters, and there was no other male member. He claimed the family status on the footing that the wealth returned consisted of ancestral property received or deemed to have been received by him on partition with his father and brothers. The Wealth Tax Officer rejected the contention and assessed him as an individual for all three years, and the Appellate Assistant Commissioner confirmed that finding. The Appellate Tribunal determined his status as that of a Hindu undivided family, and on a reference the Andhra Pradesh High Court decided against him by its judgment of 30 November 1964 in Reference Case No. 49 of 1962. He appealed by certificate.
The appeals were allowed with costs, one hearing fee. The status of the appellant was rightly determined as that of a Hindu undivided family by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, and the question of law referred to the High Court was answered in the affirmative and against the Commissioner of Wealth Tax. There is no warrant for the contention that there must be at least two male members to form a Hindu undivided family as a taxable unit; under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters, and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu undivided family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members.
The Court took the first question to be whether the status of the appellant was that of a Hindu undivided family consisting of himself, his wife and his daughters. It reasoned that the expression "Hindu Undivided Family" in the Wealth Tax Act is used in the sense in which a Hindu joint family is understood in the personal law of Hindus, so that the content of the expression is supplied by the personal law and not by any definition in the taxing statute; that under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters; and that there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act which requires an assessable Hindu undivided family to have at least two male members. On that footing the Tribunal's determination of the status was upheld and the High Court's answer reversed.
Under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu Undivided Family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members.
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Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppNo. The Supreme Court held there is no warrant for the contention that there must be at least two male members to form a Hindu undivided family as a taxable unit. The expression "Hindu Undivided Family" in the Wealth Tax Act is used in the sense in which a Hindu joint family is understood in the personal law of Hindus; under that law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters; and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu undivided family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members. The appeals were allowed with costs and the status was held to have been rightly determined by the Tribunal as that of a Hindu undivided family. THE ACT CONSTRUED IS THE WEALTH-TAX ACT, 1957. This was decided by the Supreme Court (J.C. Shah J, V. Ramaswami J and A.N. Grover J (judgment delivered by Ramaswami J)) and bears on section Wealth-tax Act 1957 s.3, section 2(31) of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as Civil Appeals Nos. 1477 to 1479 of 1968; 1970 AIR 14; 1969 SCR (3) 882; 74 ITR 190. This is the decision that fixes the composition side of the family status, and it is the necessary complement to C. Krishna Prasad v. CIT. Krishna Prasad holds that a single person is not a family; Narendranath holds that a family does not need two males. Put together, the requirement is plurality of MEMBERS. What made the difference on the facts was the character of the property: the wealth returned consisted of ancestral property received, or deemed to have been received, by the appellant on partition with his father and brothers — property in which his wife and daughters had rights of maintenance and in which a son born to him would take an interest by birth — not property he had acquired for himself. That distinction is the one the reader has to carry into his own case, because the library's other authority on this ground, Surjit Lal Chhabda v. CIT, concerns a man who threw his own SELF-ACQUIRED property into the hotchpot of a family consisting of himself, his wife and an unmarried daughter, and it went the other way. Note the limits of what is decided here: the Act construed is the Wealth-tax Act, 1957, the assessment years are 1957-58 to 1959-60, and the Court is construing the expression "Hindu undivided family" as a unit of assessment in that Act by reference to the personal law. The decision predates the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005, and says nothing about whether the daughters were coparceners — the whole point being that they did not need to be for the family to exist. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Identify the source of the property first. Narendranath turns on ancestral property received on partition; a claim built on self-acquired property blended into the family raises a different question and a different line of authority.
The appellant's father, N.V. Rangarao, held an impartible estate called the Munagala Estate in the Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. The estate was abolished under the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 and compensation under section 45 of that Act was paid severally to the appellant, his father and his brothers. Other properties of the joint family of the appellant, his father and brothers were also partitioned between them from time to time. The assets in issue consisted of investments made from the compensation amount in securities and shares and of other assets such as bank deposits. For the assessment years 1957-58, 1958-59 and 1959-60 the appellant filed returns in the status of a Hindu undivided family. His family at the material time consisted of himself, his wife and his two minor daughters, and there was no other male member. He claimed the family status on the footing that the wealth returned consisted of ancestral property received or deemed to have been received by him on partition with his father and brothers. The Wealth Tax Officer rejected the contention and assessed him as an individual for all three years, and the Appellate Assistant Commissioner confirmed that finding. The Appellate Tribunal determined his status as that of a Hindu undivided family, and on a reference the Andhra Pradesh High Court decided against him by its judgment of 30 November 1964 in Reference Case No. 49 of 1962. He appealed by certificate. The matter was decided on 1969-03-07 by the Supreme Court (J.C. Shah J, V. Ramaswami J and A.N. Grover J (judgment delivered by Ramaswami J)). On those facts the Supreme Court held as follows. The appeals were allowed with costs, one hearing fee. The status of the appellant was rightly determined as that of a Hindu undivided family by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, and the question of law referred to the High Court was answered in the affirmative and against the Commissioner of Wealth Tax. There is no warrant for the contention that there must be at least two male members to form a Hindu undivided family as a taxable unit; under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters, and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu undivided family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members.
The Court took the first question to be whether the status of the appellant was that of a Hindu undivided family consisting of himself, his wife and his daughters. It reasoned that the expression "Hindu Undivided Family" in the Wealth Tax Act is used in the sense in which a Hindu joint family is understood in the personal law of Hindus, so that the content of the expression is supplied by the personal law and not by any definition in the taxing statute; that under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters; and that there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act which requires an assessable Hindu undivided family to have at least two male members. On that footing the Tribunal's determination of the status was upheld and the High Court's answer reversed. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "Under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu Undivided Family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members."
It was decided by the Supreme Court on 1969-03-07 and is reported as Civil Appeals Nos. 1477 to 1479 of 1968; 1970 AIR 14; 1969 SCR (3) 882; 74 ITR 190. Binding on every court and authority in India. A Supreme Court decision binds every assessing officer, every Commissioner (Appeals), every bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and every High Court in India. An officer who declines to follow it is acting contrary to law, and that refusal is itself a ground of appeal. On section Wealth-tax Act 1957 s.3, section 2(31), 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 appeals were allowed with costs, one hearing fee. The status of the appellant was rightly determined as that of a Hindu undivided family by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, and the question of law referred to the High Court was answered in the affirmative and against the Commissioner of Wealth Tax. There is no warrant for the contention that there must be at least two male members to form a Hindu undivided family as a taxable unit; under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters, and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu undivided family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members. It arises in Assessment & Scrutiny and How Tax Law Is Read matters, on section Wealth-tax Act 1957 s.3, section 2(31) of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by J.C. Shah J, V. Ramaswami J and A.N. Grover J (judgment delivered by Ramaswami J). 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. Rebut the two-male-members argument by quoting the Court's own words; it is not a real requirement and the Supreme Court said so in terms. Establish who the members are — wife, daughters, widows of deceased members — and put the plurality on the record; that is the fact on which the status turns. Where the point arises under the Income-tax Act rather than the Wealth-tax Act, say expressly that you are relying on the Court's construction of the expression by reference to the personal law of Hindus, and pair it with C. Krishna Prasad v. CIT, which decides the same question under the Income-tax Act. Do not extend the decision to a family with a single member; the Court's reasoning rests on a joint family consisting of a male member AND his wife and daughters.
Still good law. A citator search returns 44 later decisions citing this judgment. The Madras High Court applied it in V.R. Govindrajulu v ACWT (20 February 2007), rejecting the contrary contention in the light of what it called the categorical pronouncement of the Supreme Court. The Calcutta High Court applied it in Moumita Mitra v Rabindra Nath Basu (10 April 1992) for the proposition that it is not necessary that there should be two male members to constitute a joint family, and the Patna High Court in CWT v Pannalal Rastogi (22 November 1973) held that its earlier decision in Hanumanmal Periwal stood overruled as a result. The Punjab and Haryana High Court analysed it in Addl. CIT v Inder Singh Uppal (23 April 1973). A second search by case name coupled with the word overruled returned six decisions, in which the word refers to other matters; nothing overruling or doubting this judgment was found. 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 plain /doc/806811/ URL returned HTTP 403 on this pass; the judgment was read through the print rendering. WHAT I ACTUALLY READ, and what I did not. My first fetch of the print URL returned the header and the closing disposal but replaced the body with the placeholder "[FULL JUDGMENT TEXT TRANSCRIBED AS PROVIDED IN SOURCE]"; that placeholder is the fetch layer's and I treated nothing inside it as read. A second, differently framed fetch of the same URL returned the opening of the judgment verbatim through the statement of facts, ending in mid-narrative at the Appellate Assistant Commissioner's order. The operative holding was then read separately, in the Court's own consecutive words, at https://indiankanoon.org/docfragment/806811/. I did NOT establish how many paragraphs this judgment has — the renderings I saw carry no paragraph numbers at all — and I have therefore given no paragraph locator for any quotation. There is a middle stretch of the judgment, between the Appellate Assistant Commissioner's order and the passage quoted, that I did not read; a later pass wanting the Tribunal's and the High Court's reasoning should target it. The equivalent-citation block printed on the source page is reproduced in 'reported'. 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 appeals were allowed with costs, one hearing fee. The status of the appellant was rightly determined as that of a Hindu undivided family by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, and the question of law referred to the High Court was answered in the affirmative and against the Commissioner of Wealth Tax. There is no warrant for the contention that there must be at least two male members to form a Hindu undivided family as a taxable unit; under the Hindu system of law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters, and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu undivided family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members.
TaxSphere, “N.V. Narendranath v. CWT — property taken on partition by a coparcener who has a wife and daughters is held as a Hindu undivided family, not as an individual (Wealth-tax Act, 1957)”, https://taxnotice.vittsphere.com/caselaw/case/n-v-narendranath-v-cwt-a-joint-family-of-a-single-male-member-with-wife-and-daughters/ (validity last checked 2026-09-09)
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My client took his share on a partition and is now the only member — unmarried, no wife, no children. He wants to file as an HUF because the property he received is ancestral. Can he?
The family's only income-producing right is the karta's share in a managing agency, which cannot be split among the members. They divided the commission between themselves. Is that a partition the department must accept?
Our karta is managing director of a company floated with family money. Is his remuneration his own income or the family's?
Our family business is run entirely outside India, but two coparceners are partners in Indian firms with family money. Does that make the family resident in India?
