Can a single coparcener maintain HUF?

Can a single coparcener maintain HUF?

The Judicial Committee in Attorney General of Ceylon v. AR. Arunachalam Chettiar is important. [1957] A.C.540.

One Arunachalam-Nattukottai Chettiar and his son constituted a joint family governed by the Mitakshara school of Hindu law. The father and son were domiciled in India and had trading and other interests in India, Ceylon and Far Eastern countries. The undivided son died in 1934 and Arunachalam became the sole surviving coparcener in the Hindu Undivided Family to which a number of female members belonged. Arunachalam died in 1938 shortly after the Estate Ordinance No. 1 of 1938 came into operation in Ceylon.

By sec.73 of the Ordinance it was provided that property passing on the death of a member of the Hindu Undivided Family was exempt from payment of estate duty.

On a claim to estate duty in respect of Arunachalam's estate in Ceylon, the Judicial Committee held that Arunachalam was at his death a member of the Hindu Undivided Family, the same undivided family of which his son, when alive, was a member and of which the continuity was preserved after Arunachalam's death by adoptions made by the widows of the family and since the undivided Hindu family continued to persist, the property in the hands of Arunachalam as a single coparcener was the property of the Hindu Undivided Family.

The Judicial Committee observed at page 543 of the Report "...........though it may be correct to speak of him as the owner', yet it is still correct to describe that which he owns as the joint family property. For his ownership is such that upon the adoption of a son it assumes a different quality; it is such, too, that female members of the family  (whose members may increase) have a right to maintenance out of it and in some circumstances to a charge for maintenance upon it. And these are incidents which arise, notwithstanding his so-called ownership, just because the property has been and has not ceased to be joint family property.

Once again their Lordships quote from the judgment of Gratiaen, J. (Gowali Buddanna's case 60 I.T.R. 293):-

"To my mind it would make a mockery of the undivided family system if this temporary reduction of the coparcenary unit to a single individual were to convert what was previously joint property belonging to an undivided family into the separate property of the surviving coparcener". To this it may be added that it would not appear reasonable to impart to the legislature the intention to discriminate, so long as the family itself subsists, between property in the hands of a single coparcener and that in the hands of two or more coparceners".

The basis of the decision was that the property which was the joint family property of the Hindu Undivided Family did not cease to be so because of the "temporary reduction of the coparcenary unit to a single individual". The character of the property, viz., that it was the joint property of a Hindu Undivided Family, remained the same.

The same principle was applied by this Court in Gowali Buddanna's case. In that case, one Buddappa, his wife, his two unmarried daughters and his unmarried son, Budanna, were members of a Hindu Undivided Family. Buddappa died and after his death the question arose whether the income of the properties held by Buddanna as the sole surviving coparcener was assessable as the individual income of Buddanna or as the income of the Hindu Undivided Family. It was held by this Court that since the property which came into the hands of Buddanna as the sole surviving coparcener was originally joint family property, it did not cease to belong to the joint family and income from it was assessable in the hands of Buddanna as income of the Hindu Undivided Family.

At page 302 Shah, J. referred to the decision of the Judicial Committee in Arunachalam's ([1957] A.C. 540) case and concluded as follows:-

"Property of a joint family, therefore, does not cease to belong to the family merely because the family is represented by a single coparcener who possesses rights which an owner of property may possess. In the case in hand the property which yielded the income originally belonged to a Hindu Undivided Family. On the death of Budappa, the family which included a widow and females, born in the family was represented by Buddanna alone, but the property still continued to belong to that undivided family and income received therefrom was taxable as income of the Hindu undivided family".

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