1958 respondent that on the facts established in the evidence, the proper conclusion to come to is that the trees r:; 1~~;:,7;'.:,:,1 ·' sold by. he respondent had be? planted by he etate J;;1.,,, """ Od."a itnthonties, and that the dec1s10n of the High Court v. that the income thus realised is within the exemption s,; 11 .. ,,,,,,,,.,;,1,,,,, nnrler s. 4(3)(viii) could be supported even on the view Deo of la.w tt1ken in The Commissioner of Income-tax, West 1·e11/11trirama Bengal, Calcutta v. Ra•a ;J Benrn1 ":J Kumar Sahas Roy ( '). Aiyar ]. The argument was that there was unimpeachable evidence that the old forests had disappeared under Podu cultivation, that the estate had been regularly cng11ged in planting trees at least from the yea.r l!l04, as is shown by the accounts of the zamin, thitt it wa.s a reasonable inference to make that there had been similar plantations even during the years prior to 1904 notwithstanding that no accounts were produced for those years, because it would not be reasonable to expect that such accounts would now be available, that though the amount shown as spent for plantation might not be considera hie, that was understandable when regard is had to the fact that the agricultural operations were conducted on tho hills and not on the plains,. that, on these facts, it would be proper to conclude that the forests were in their entirety the result of plantation. It would be an erroneous approach, it was argued, to ca.II upon the assessee to prove tree by tree that it was planted. Now, these are matters of appreciation of evidence on what is essentially a question of fact, viz., whether the trees were of spontaneous growth or were products of plantation. On this, the Tribunal has given a clear finding on a consideration of all the material oviclence, and its finding is final and not open to challenge in a reference under s. 66 (1) of the Act. Evon the learned Judges of the High Court who cone sidered themselves free to review that finding-and, as already pointed out, without justification, could only observe that the trees must have mostly grown from the sumps left when the forests were burnt for purposes of Podu cultivation-a finding which is. fatal to the. contention now urged for the respondent that they {1) [1958] S.C.R. IOI, 155, 158, 16o.
