JUDGEMENT

Appeal (No. 31 of 1940) from a judgment of the High Court (March 9, 1938).

The following facts are taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee This was an appeal by the assessees from a judgment of the High Court at Allahabad on a reference made under sub-s. 2 of s. 66 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922. The question referred arose out of an assessment made for the year 1932-3 on the profits of a business carried on under the style of "The Saraiyar Sugar Factory" at Saraiyar, in the district of Gorakpur in the United Provinces. The year of account was the year ending September 30, 1931, in accordance with the accounting practice of the assessees. The matter of substance in the present dispute was whether the assessment should be made on the footing that the business belonged to a Hindu undivided family or on the footing that it belonged to a firm of which the

father, mother and three sons were partners on the terms of a written instrument, dated February 12, 1933. The family were Sher Gill Jats of the Amritsar district of the Punjab. It was not disputed that they formed a Hindu undivided family, but with them the general Hindu law was superseded by custom which prov