S.22/28: Law on whether income from letting of properties is assessable as "business profits" or as "Income from house property" explained

Chennai Properties & Investments Ltd vs. CIT (Supreme Court)

Where there is a letting out of premises and collection of rents the assessment on property basis may be correct but not so, where the letting or sub-letting is part of a trading operation. The diving line is difficult to find; but in the case of a company with its professed objects and the manner of its activities and the nature of its dealings with its property, it is possible to say on which side the operations fall and to what head the income is to be assigned