nature of the obligation cannot be said to be a part of the income of the assessee. Where by the obligation income is diverted before it reaches the assessee, it is deductible; but where the income is required to be applied to discharge an obligation after such income reaches the assessee, the same consequence, in law, does not follow. It is the first kind of payment which can truly be excused and not the second. The second payment is merely an obligation to pay another a portion of one's own income, which has been received and is since applied. The first is a case in which the income never reaches the assessee, who even if he were to collect it, does so, not as part of his income, but for and on behalf of the person to whom it is payable. In our opinion, the present case is one in which the wife and children of the assessee who continued to be members of the family received a portion of the income of the assessee, after the assessee had received the income as his own. The case is one of application of a portion of the income to discharge an obligation and not a case in which by an overriding charge the assessee became only a collector of another's income. The matter in the present case would have been different, if such an overriding charge had existed either upon the property or upon its income, which is not the case. In our opinion, the case falls outside the rule in Bejoy Singh Dudhuria case [(1933) 1 ITR 135] and rather falls within the rule stated by the Judicial Committee in P.C. Mullick case [(1938) 6 ITR 206] .”
