Rajagopalan, J. - The assessee, the wife of A. Sheik Abdul Khadar a “nonresident” for the purposes of the Income-tax Act, received from her husband, who was at Bangkok, sums totalling Rs. 9180 during the year of account ending with 31st March, 1942. These amounts were remitted by the husband to India by bank drafts obtained in the name of his agent Yahya Maricar, who paid the amounts to the assessee. The assessee did not submit any return of these items, which constituted “income” in her hands under section 4(2) of the Act, in the assessment year 1942-43. The proceedings under section 34 of the Act were initiated with the issue of the prescribed notice on 25th July, 1949. The Tribunal recorded that in her appeal against the assessment, which had been confirmed by the Assistant Commissioner, the assesee contended that

“(1) the initiation of proceedings on 25th July, 1949, under section 34 as amended by Act XLVIII of 1948 is invalid as the Department’s right to revise the assessment was governed by the old section 34 where the period of limitation prescribed was only four years in the case of a failure to file a return, and this period having expired on 31st March, 1947, that is, four years from the end of the year of default, and the amended Act having come into force only from 30th March, 1948, the eight-year period provided therein could not be invoked and (2) that the amount was not remitted directly by the non-resident husband to the wife but through an intermediary and therefore such income could not be deemed to be an income of the wife under the provisions of section 4(2) of the Act.”

Both the contentions were negatived by the Tribunal.

The questions referred to this Court under section 66(1) of the Act were:

(1) Whether the proceedings under section 34 of the Indian Income-tax Act initiated on 25th July, 1949, to assess the amount of Rs. 9,180 which escaped assessment during the year 1942-43 by failure to submit a voluntary return are valid in law?

(2) Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case, the sum of Rs. 9,180 received by the assessee from her husband through Mr. Yahya Maricar is assessable to income-tax under section 4 (2) of the Act?

Section 34 was amended by Act XLVIII of 1948, and the amended section 34 came into force on 30th March, 1948. It was common ground, that the period of limitation would have been eight years for cases of failure to submit any return of income in the relevant assessment year had the amended section 34 applied. The contention of the assessee was that the period was only four years under section 34 as it stood before it was amended in 1948, and that that period of limitation expired on 31st Match, 1947. The further contention was that between 31st March, 1947 and 30th March, 1948, no action could have been taken against her under section 34 as it stood during that period and that the extended period of limitation could not therefore be applied to her case. The tribunal accepted the contention of the assessee that the period of limitation was only four years under section 34 as it stood before it was amended in 1948. That finding, in our opinion, was correct. We must reject the plea of the learned counsel for the Commissioner, that even under the old section 34 the period of limitation was eight years for failure on the part of the assessee to submit a return. The failure to submit a return was neither concealment of particulars of income nor furnishing deliberately inaccurate particulars thereof within the meaning of the old unamended section 34, to which two classes alone the eight-year-rule applied. The assessee’s case fell into the other class for which the old section 34 provided, “any other case”, to which the four-year-rule applied.

Even at the outset we must make it clear that we are concerned only with a case of liability to assessment under section 34 of the Act of an assessee who had failed to submit the return in the relevant assessment year. The effect of section 1(2) of th

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