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 immovable property was the house in Ayalur Muthiah Mudali Street. That was sold by the assessee in 1945, and with the sale proceeds another house, No. 3, Varadarajulu Naidu Street, was purchased. The new house was thus the substituted ancestral joint family property of the assessee and his sons

The assessee maintained only one set of accounts, which included the income----first from the house in Ayalur Muthiah Mudali Street and then the house in Varadarajulu Naidu Street. But that income was comparatively very small. The bulk of the income was from the agency business. Till the assessment year 1952-53, the assessee was assessed in his status as an individual on his entire income including the small amount which he derived from the ancestral immovable propertyOn December 19, 1952, the assessee effected a partition between himself and his minor sons. Provision was also made for the maintenance, education and marriage of his daughter, Mahalakshmi, who was also a minor. The mother of the three minor children represented them in that transaction. The deed of partition has been appended as annexure " B " to the statement of the case. In that deed of partition the assessee recorded

" Whereas the party of the first part (assessee) has been earning commission and acquiring property and blending his money with the assets inherited from his father and treating the entire properties extant before and after the birth of the parties of the second and third parts (sons) till this date as joint family property without making any discrimination or distinction. " *

The movable and immovable properties set out in Schedule A, valued at Rs. 49, 655, were allotted to the share of the assessee. The movable and immovable properties valued at Rs. 83, 650 were allotted to the share of the elder son, Selvakumar. The movable and immovable properties valued at Rs. 1, 20, 000 were allotted to the share of the second son, Rajkumar. The amount of Rs. 61, 410 in fixed deposit was set apart for the maintenance, clothing, education and marriage expenses of the daughter, Mahalakshmi. It should be noted that the agency business itself was not made the subject matter of the partition. It continued with the assessee, and continued to be his separate property

In the assessment year 1953-54 for the account year ending with March 31, 1953, the assessee claimed that the entire income of the properties dealt with in the partition deed belonged to the joint family of himself and his sons up to December 19, 1952, and that, thereafter, he was liable to be assessed only on the income from the property that came to his share under the deed of partitionThe Income-tax Officer held that the only piece of joint family property was the house in Varadarajulu Naidu Street. The Income-tax Officer assessed the asse