RAJAGOPALAN, J.

Kulandavelu Mudaliar, the father of the assessee, was an agent of Mullar and Phipps (India) Ltd. and he handled the sale of their pharmaceutical preparations. He gave up that agency, and on July 1, 1937, the petitioner was appointed the company's agent Kulandavelu died on July 27, 1938. The assessee, the only son of Kulandavelu, inherited from his father a house in Ayalur Muthiah Mudali Street, a sum of Rs. 3, 000, realised on insurance policies, and Rs. 600 refunded by the Income-tax Department. The cash went into his banking account. On the death of Kulandavelu, the assessee was the sole male member of his family

In the assessment year 1938-39 the assessee's claim was upheld, that his appointment as the agent of the company did not constitute any succession to any business of Kulandavelu and that the agency and the business that ensued constituted the separate acquisition of the assessee, independent of his father

The agency proved lucrative, and the assessee acquired properties, movable and immovable. His first son was born on August 11, 1944, and the second on September 3, 1945. Together they constituted a joint family. The only piece of ancestral immov