Kerala High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Dama Seshadri Naidu, J. while hearing a civil writ petition ruled that a daughter is an ostensible agent of her mother and as such application filed by daughter on behalf of her mother is maintainable.
Petitioners, a mother-daughter duo, were partners in the business of husband/father which was an assessee under the Kerala Value Added Tax Act. Respondent initiated proceedings to recover arrears of tax and as a part of those proceedings it attached the husband’s share in his ancestral property. Petitioner wife who had strained marital relationship with her husband filed an execution petition for return of her property and movables from him, which was allowed by the Family Court. On obtaining sale certificate for her property, she noted that the said property had already been attached by the respondent tax authority. So she filed an application before tax authorities through her daughter to take advantage of the amnesty scheme floated by Department for the defaulting dealers but her request was rejected. Assailing the said order of rejection, petitioner filed the instant petition.
Petitioner submitted that the amnesty scheme allowed any aggrieved person to apply under it and the petitioners were aggrieved persons as they had an interest in the assessee’s estate. The husband had acted vindictively and deliberately not taken benefit of the amnesty scheme as he did not want his wife and daughter to receive the property.
Respondents submitted that it was the wife had filed matrimonial proceedings and secured a sale certificate. Therefore, her daughter could not be included within the term ‘aggrieved person’ and as such application filed by daughter before tax authorities was not maintainable.
The Court observed that petitioner duo had a common cause: driven out, both had to fend for themselves. The daughter was a dependent – the mother had fought not only to secure her interest but also to secure her daughter’s interest. Therefore, the daughter was ostensible agent of her mother, who has already secured a sale certificate. Separately, as a dependent, she also had a stake in her father’s estate. In view of the above, the petition was allowed with a direction to the tax authority to consider daughter’s application afresh. [Naseera A.P. v. State of Tax Officer,2018 SCC OnLine Ker 4924, decided on 07-11-2018]
