HON’BLE SUPREME COURT · SOURCE-REVIEWED NOTE
New Jehangir Vakil Mills Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Bombay North, Kutch and Saurashtra
Civil Appeal No. 50 of 1957
[1960] 1 SCR 249 ·
Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, sections 4(1)(a), 66(1), 66(2), 66(4)
Sources & disclosures includedDownload original judgment / order
3-judge bench · S. R. Das · N. H. Bhagwati · M. Hidayatullah
Assessment years: 1943–44, 1944–45
01 · Facts of the case
Non-resident Bhavnagar mill disputed taxable receipt of cheques later cashed in British India. Tribunal accepted receipt at Bhavnagar. High Court called for supplementary inquiry into a different, previously unraised postal-agency theory; special leave was limited to its power to do so.
Source: Primary report: SCR 250–258
02 · Discussion by the Hon’ble Court
Section 66 reference jurisdiction is advisory, confined to questions arising from Tribunal order. Supplementation could complete statement with existing record facts but could not open a new evidentiary inquiry or let a party build a case never advanced. Reframing to express actual disputed issue differs from introducing a distinct question.
Source: Primary report: SCR 259–269
03 · Judicial decision
High Court lacked jurisdiction in these circumstances to demand findings on express or implied postal request never previously contested.
Source: Primary report: SCR 269–270
04 · Outcome / in whose favour
Appeal allowed; remanded to High Court to decide actual reference on statement already submitted; Revenue pays costs throughout. Supreme Court did not finally decide the tax reference.
Source: Primary report: SCR 270
05 · AKHB REVIEW POINT
A procedural holding about this historical reference and unraised postal theory; distinguish Jagdish Mills where implied request was litigated. Later treatment of section 66 jurisprudence requires separate checking.
Source & verification
Download original judgment / order · Open cited source rendition
Complete 22-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.
Page references identify the supplied PDF; paragraph references identify the judgment unless stated otherwise.
AI disclosure & professional disclaimer
This AKHB research note uses AI assistance and a preserved full-primary review, with refreshed exact original-byte verification. Independent human review is not represented.
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.