BALASUBRAHMANYAN J.

This reference raises an interesting point. The assessee is a company carrying on business as a distributor of cinematograph films. The assesse gives the positive prints of films to distributors who exhibit them in their cinema houses. The consideration received from them by the assessee goes by the name of "collections". To the assessee, such collections are receipts from the assessee's trade in the distribution of films. Before or at the time of handing over the prints for exhibition to an exhibitor, the assessee received what is called a security deposit. It is said that the deposit is taken by the assessee for the due fulfilment of the terms of the agreement between the parties. The amount in deposit being for this purpose, viz., for the fulfilment of the terms of the agreement, it will not remain with the assessee in deposit when the agreement is fulfilled or completed. The deposit is thus a returnable or a refundable deposit. But, it might so happen, in the exigencies of business, that the deposit would be sometimes retained by the assessee. It would get depleted or even wholly disappear as and when the film distributor does not send the collect