HON’BLE SUPREME COURT · SOURCE-REVIEWED NOTE
Commissioner of Income-tax, Bihar and Orissa v. Sri Ramakrishna Deo
Civil Appeal No. 426 of 1957
[1959] Supp. 1 SCR 176 ·
Indian Income-tax Act, 1922: sections 2(1), 4(3)(viii), 66(1)
Sources & disclosures includedDownload original judgment / order
3-judge bench · T. L. Venkatarama Aiyar · P. B. Gajendragadkar · A. K. Sarkar
Assessment years: 1942-43, 1943-44, 1944-45, 1945-46, 1946-47
01 · Facts of the case
A zamindar claimed exemption for receipts from forest produce. After further inquiry, the Tribunal found no material plantation by the estate and held the relevant trees to be of spontaneous growth. The High Court nevertheless treated substantial maintenance and regeneration operations as agriculture.
02 · Discussion by the Hon’ble Court
The taxpayer claiming exemption bore the burden of proving it. Subsequent maintenance operations could not supply the missing basic agricultural operations. The Tribunal’s factual finding bound the reference court; destruction of older forests and growth from remaining stumps did not prove planting. High maintenance expenditure alone did not establish agricultural income.
03 · Judicial decision
The forest receipts were not exempt agricultural income on the facts found.
04 · Outcome / in whose favour
Revenue appeal allowed, the High Court order set aside and reference answered affirmatively, with costs in both courts.
05 · AKHB REVIEW POINT
Keep evidence of basic operations and identify the produce actually yielding the receipts. Maintenance budgets cannot substitute for proof of cultivation or planting, and an earlier decision must be read with its distinct factual findings.
Source & verification
Download original judgment / order · Open cited source rendition
Complete 14-page Supreme Court Reports scan. Any adjoining report fragments remain in the unchanged original and are excluded from this analysis.
Statutory scope
Historical legislation expressly identified in this note. This is not a decision under the Income-tax Act, 1961 or the Income-tax Act, 2025. Verify enacted wording, commencement, transition and subsequent judicial treatment independently before modern reliance.
Later treatment
Source checked 2026-10-23. Subsequent treatment and present-law applicability have not been comprehensively checked.
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General legal and tax research only; not legal or tax advice. Verify the complete judgment, applicable statutory version and subsequent treatment before reliance. AKHB REVIEW POINT is editorial analysis, not the Court’s holding.