B. P. JEEVAN REDDY, CJ.

( 1 ) UNDER Section 27 (3) of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957, the Tribunal referred the following four questions :

1. "whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, Rule 1d of the Wealth-tax Rules, 1957, overrides the provisions of Section 24 (6) of the Wealth-tax Act ?

( 2 ) WHETHER, on the facts and in the circumstances, is it open to the Revenue to rely on Rule 1d even though no specific argument was raised before Tribunal ?

( 3 ) WHETHER, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was justified in adopting the valuation as made by the; valuers even though their valuation was not based on the statutory method of valuation provided under Rule 1d?

( 4 ) WHETHER the valuers to whom the valuation of shares was referred under Section 24 (6) of the act were, in law, bound to follow the method of valuation prescribed by Rule 1d of the wealth-tax Rules ?

"2. The assessee is an individual. She held certain unquoted shares of various companies of the j. K. Group In her returns filed under the Wealth-tax Act, she valued those shares by taking the average of the breakup value method and the yield value method. This was not accepted by the wealth-tax Officer who revalued the shares, applying the break-up method. The assessee appealed. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner upheld the valuation method adopted by the assessee, whereupon the Department carried the matter in appeal to the Tribunal. At that time, a number of other appeals filed by other members of the family were pending before the Tribunal and in those appeals a reference was made to the valuers under Sub-section (6) of Section 24 of the Wealth-tax Act. The parties to this appeal agreed before the Tribunal that the hearing of this appeal may be held over till the receipt of the valuation report in those other cases. After the receipt of the valuation report, the Tribunal disposed of this appeal applying the valuation placed by the valuers. Thereupon, the Revenue applied for referring the aforesaid questions which was declined by the Tribunal but directed to be stated by this court.

3. We shall deal with the questions in their proper order. The first question is whether Rule 1d of the Wealth-tax Rules overrides the provisions of Section 24 (6) of the Wealth-tax Act ? We are afraid this question presupposes an inconsistency between the said rule and the said sub-section which, in our opinion, is not really there. The fields of operation of both the provisions are different and distinct. Section 24 (6) enables the Tribunal to refer the question of valuation to valuers in certain circumstances ; whereas Rule 1d sets out the method according to which unquoted shares are to be valued. It is obvious that the valuers, while valuing the shares under sub-section (6) of Section 24, have to follow the method prescribed by Rule 1d. There is, therefore, no question of Rule 1d overriding Section 24 (6 ). Both operate in their respective fields. The question is answered accordingly.

4. Coming to question No. 2, it is true that the order of the Tribunal does not disclose that Rule 1d as such was referred to or relied upon by the appellant (Revenue) but it is equally clear that the whole argument of the Revenue was that the shares must be valued by adopting the break-up method as was done by the Wealth-tax Officer. Rule 1d, it must be noted, incorporates the break-up method. (In this respect, it is necessary to notice two facts : one is that Rule 1d came into force on October 6, 1967. It was not in existence when the Wealth-tax Officer made the assessment. It was, of course, available by the date of filing of the appeal before the Tribunal. The second is the decision of this court in CWT v. Laxmipat Singhania [1978] 111 ITR 272, which holds that the said rule being procedural in nature applies to pending assessments relating even to the assessment years previous to the assessment year 1966-67 ). It is thus clear that, Rule 1d was indeed applicabl

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