VEERASWAMI J.

This reference relating to the assessment years 1955-56 to 1960-61 raises the problem of application, to the facts, of section 12(iv) of the Banking Companies Act, 1949, before and after its amendment in 1956. Clause (iv) was recast in that year and took the shape of sub-section (2) of that section. Clause (iv), as originally stood was to this effect that

"No banking company shall carry on business in any Province of India unless it satisfies (among other conditions) that the voting rights of any one shareholder do not exceed five per cent. of the total voting rights of all the shareholders .........." *

The section had a proviso with which we are not concerned. As amended in 1956, sub-section (2) of section 12 stated that no person holding shares in a banking company shall, in respect of any shares held by him, exercise voting rights on poll in excess of 5 per cent. of the total voting rights of the shareholders of the banking company. Though, in substance and effect, the amended provision is the same as the unamended one, the former brings out the intent more clearly. By an application of the above provision, the Tribunal held that the assessee was not a