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26. In this connection, a useful reference may be made to the judgment of a Division Bench of this High Court consisting of Chagla C.J. and Tendolkar J. in CIT v. Bai Navajbai N. Gamadia . In that case, a Parsi lady had created a trust for charitable purposes by a deed of trust which reserved to her a power of revocation of the trust. The question arose whether the income arising from the trust property was exempt from income-tax under s. 4(3)(i) of the Indian I.T. Act, 1923. One of the contentions raised on behalf of the Department, as can be seen from the statement of case reproduced in the report of that case as given in [1947] 16 ITR at page 112, was that revocable trusts were not valid trusts and, therefore, could not be covered by the said s. 4(3). The Division Bench repelled that contention in the following words (p. 114) :

"The other contention raised by the Advocate-General is whether this particular trust is a charitable trust at all. The argument advanced by the Advocate-General is that it is not open to a Parsi in India to make a revocable trust of personality for a charitable purpose. Now, it is well-established that a Parsi has no personal law which governs him in British India and he is either governed by the statutory law of this country or in the absence of statutory law he is governed by the Common Law of England and under the common Law as stated both in Tudor on Charities (p. 551) and in Halsbury's Laws of England (Vol. 4, p. 200), it is open to a person to make a trust of personality in favour of a charity which is a revocable trust. Therefore, in our opinion, the answer to the question raised by the Tribunal must be in the affirmative."

42. Narandas, having created all the above trusts by regular deeds of trust and not according to the ceremonies required under the Hindu law, the validity so far as the form of these deeds of trust is concerned cannot be judged by the principles of Hindu law but by the principles of the law of trusts. However, whether the objects of the trusts are religious or charitable would fall to be determined according to the principles of Hindu law, Narandas being a Hindu.

43. We now turn to the question whether the power of revocation survived after the trust funds were amalgamated by the said deed of appointment of new trustees, dated April 5, 1946. We have already set out earlier what the effect of this deed was. To recapitulate, under it, all the trusts till then created, namely, the trusts created under the first, second, third and fourth deeds by the said Narandas and the two trusts created by the three Veljis were blended together and consolidated into one trust and all the properties held in common and they were thereafter administered by the same set of trustees. These trusts, therefore, in substance became one trust. Apart from the recitals in the subsequent deeds of trust, these facts are clearly borne out by the averments made in the said petition, dated March 3, 1952, made to this High Court. Now, it is pertinent to bear in mind that while under the earlier deeds of trust the power of revocation was reserved to Narandas, his heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, under the two deeds of trust executed by the three Veljis, the power of revocation was reserved to the three Veljis and was to be exercised only in the eventuality of Narandas revoking the earlier trusts. Since the two Velji trusts also became amalgamated and blended with the trusts executed by Narandas and functioned as one trust, it was not thereafter open to Narandas to revoke any of his trusts, because, by doing so, he would also be revoking the Velji trusts which he was not entitled to do under their respective trust deeds. Therefore, from and after the date of this amalgamation, the power of revocation ceased to be exercisable by Narandas and one may well say that by becoming a party to this blending or amalgamation Narandas surrendered the right reserved to him to restore to himself the absolute interest in the trust property and the case would, therefore, fall under the first proviso to s. 12 of the E.D. Act.

45. It was next argued on behalf of the respondents that the power of revocation reserved to Narandas under the first second, third and fourth deeds of trust was void as infringing the rule against perpetuity inasmuch as the revocation was to be either by Narandas or his heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, it was submitted that if Narandas died intestate, as he in fact did, no one may take out letters of administration to his estate for a number of years, and if ultimately somebody did take out letters of administration, the person to do so may do it beyond the period of perpetuity and that such a possibility rendered the power of revocation void. In support of this submission, reliance was placed upon In re Watson's Settlement Trusts : Dawson v. Reid [1958] 1 WLR 732, in which the power of revocation was conferred upon the trustees of the deed of trust. The court held that as the power of revocation granted to trustees was not limited to the period of perpetuity, the power was void ab initio. On behalf of the applicant, it was submitted that the power of revocation did not create any interest in the trust property in favour of the person entitled to revoke the trust, but was a mere personal grant and that, therefore, the rule against perpetuity did not apply to a power of revocation in a deed of trust. We consider it unnecessary to discuss this question inasmuch as we have held that the power of revocation in each of the trust deeds in question had become or was inoperative and ineffectual.