M. M. ISMAIL C.J.

The petitioner in both these tax revision cases is one and the same, and these cases relate to the assessment years 1972-73 and 1973-74. The petitioner is an assessee on the file of the Agrl. ITO, Pattukottai, and he has settled his properties on his three sons, four daughters, three wives, mother, an orphanage and a secondary school at Karambakkadu on March 11, 1960. Up to the assessment year 1971-72, the assessee was permitted to compound his agricultural income-tax on his total holdings of 270.12 acres of land as it stood before the abovesaid settlement of properties. The assessee filed revision petitions before the Commissioner of Agrl. I.T. against the assessment orders for the assessment years 1961-62 to 1963-64 and the Commissioner dismissed them. However, the High Court held that the Agrl. ITO was correct in clubbing the lands settled in favour of his sons, daughters and wives. But, in the present case, we are concerned with a very narrow question. The assessee had married a third wife by name Neelavathi Ammal on April 3, 1949. He has settled certain lands on the minor daughter of his by name Indrani born through the third wife, Neelavathi Ammal. The Agrl. ITO did not club the lands so settled in favour of Indrani with the lands of the assessee for the purpose of computing the total tax payable by the assessee. However, the Commissioner of Agrl. I.T. took up suo motu revision and held that s. 9(2)(a)(iv) of the Tamil Nadu Agrl. I.T. Act, 1955, is attracted to the case in question and that, therefore, the land settled by the assessee on the minor child, Indrani, is liable to be included in the lands of the assessee. Consequently, by his order dated December 16, 1974, he directed the Agrl. ITO to pass fresh orders including the land settled in the name of Indrani under s. 9(2) of the Tamil Nadu Agrl. I.T. Act. It is to revise this order that the present petition under s. 54(1) of the said Act has been filed The matter came up before a Bench consisting of Sethuraman and Balasubrahmanyan JJ. The learned judges directed the Commissioner to record a finding as to the date of marriage of the assessee with his third wife, Neelavathi Ammal. This, was necessitated by the fact that though it was stated that the marriage took place in 1949, there was no material to show whether that marriage took place subsequent to the coming into force of the Tamil Nadu (Bigamy Prevention and Divorce) Act (Tamil Nadu Act 4 of 1949) or earlier to that Act. The reason for calling for such a finding was that if the marriage had taken place subsequent to that Act, the marriage would be void being bigamous, and, consequently, Indrani would be an illegitimate child of the assessee; but, on the other hand, if the marriage had taken place prior to the coming into force of that Act, the marriage would have been valid and the said child would have been a legitimate child. After this court called for a finding, the Commissioner, by his order dated September 20, 1979, has rendered a finding that the marriage between the assessee and Neelavathi Ammal took place on April 3, 1949. Now, it is not in controversy before us that the date, April 3, 1949, is subsequent to the coming into force of the Tamil Nadu Act of 1949, already referred to and, therefore, the marriage was bigamous and hence void and, consequently, Indrani, the offspring of that marriage, is an illegitimate child of the assessee. It is as against the background of this position we have now to consider whether the Commissioner was right in including the land settled on Indrani with the lands of the assessee for the purpose of determining the agricultural income-tax payable by him under the Tamil Nadu Act V of 1955. Section 9(2) of that Act states

"9(2) In computing the total agricultural income of any individual for the purpose of assessment, there shall be included-

(a) so much of the agricultural income of a wife or minor child of such individual as arises directly or