CHAPTER XI — ADDITIONAL INCOME-TAX ON UNDISTRIBUTED PROFITS
CHAPTER XI — ADDITIONAL INCOME-TAX ON UNDISTRIBUTED PROFITS
SECTION 107A — REDUCTION OF MINIMUM DISTRIBUTION IN CERTAIN CASES
Case Laws & Commentary · Income-tax Act, 1961 (as amended by the Finance Act, 2026) · Historic / Omitted Provision
Status: OMITTED. Section 107A was omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, with effect from 1 April 1988.
Life of the provision: Section 107A was INSERTED by the Finance Act, 1964, with effect from 1 April 1964 (verbatim note from the Bare Act: “Original section was inserted by the Finance Act, 1964, w.e.f. 1-4-1964”); it was omitted, with the rest of Chapter XI, by the Finance Act, 1987 w.e.f. 1-4-1988.
Predecessor: section 23A of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 (in its post-Finance Act, 1955 form, under which the additional tax fell on the company itself rather than being deemed a dividend in the shareholders' hands). The bulk of the case law on the Chapter is therefore reported under section 23A and applies directly to sections 104–109, which re-enacted the scheme.
Finance Act, 2026 impact: None. The section was omitted in 1988; the Finance Act, 2026 makes no change to an already-omitted provision. Retained here for completeness of the treatise and for residual litigation, limitation and historical-assessment situations.
A. SECTION COMMENTARY
A.1 Function — a relief reducing the required distribution
Section 107A was a relieving provision inserted in 1964. It allowed the statutory minimum distribution otherwise required under section 104 to be reduced in defined cases — principally to recognise that a company which had ploughed back profits into capital expenditure on a new or expanding industrial undertaking, or into similar productive investment, ought not to be penalised for retaining (rather than distributing) the profits so applied. It thus reconciled the anti-hoarding objective of section 104 with the national policy of encouraging industrial investment.
A.2 The operative scheme (editorial summary)
Editorial summary, not verbatim text (verbatim text belongs in the companion Block-1 file): where a company satisfied the conditions specified in section 107A (broadly, the application of profits to qualifying capital/industrial purposes), the minimum amount it was obliged to distribute under section 104 was reduced accordingly, with a corresponding reduction in its exposure to the additional tax. The relief operated as a deduction from, or scaling-down of, the section 104 distribution requirement.
A.3 Doctrinal themes
Section 107A shares the interpretive DNA of the incentive deductions: a relieving provision advancing an industrial-policy object is construed to give effect to that object, while the conditions for the relief are applied as enacted. In operation, however, every section 107A computation still presupposed the section 104 charge and the commercial-profits / distributable-income framework of sections 104 and 109; the validity and object of that charge (Sardar Baldev Singh) and the commercial-profits measure (Gangadhar Banerjee; Bipinchandra Maganlal) therefore remain the governing authorities.
A.4 Repeal
Omitted by the Finance Act, 1987 w.e.f. 1-4-1988; no change by the Finance Act, 2026.
B. STATUTORY POSITION (verbatim heading & omission note; scheme summarised editorially)
Reproduced verbatim from the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Bare Act, as amended by the Finance Act, 2025):
Reduction of minimum distribution in certain cases.
107A. [Omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988. Original section was inserted by the Finance Act, 1964, w.e.f. 1-4-1964.]
Chapter note (verbatim): [Chapter XI omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988. While sections 95 to 103 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1965, w.e.f. 1-4-1965, sections 104 to 109 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988.]
C. CASE LAW — CLUSTERED BY ISSUE
Cluster C-0 : Validity and object of the charge that section 107A relieves (cross-referenced from section 104)
Sardar Baldev Singh v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Delhi & Ajmer (1960) 40 ITR 605 (SC).
Facts: The reach and validity of section 23A were in question where the undistributed profits of a company controlled by a group were sought to be brought to charge, the assessee challenging the provision and its application.
Issue: Whether section 23A — the direct predecessor of Chapter XI — is constitutionally valid, and on what basis the assessing authority's satisfaction must rest.
Held: The Supreme Court upheld section 23A as a valid measure directed against the avoidance of personal taxation through the device of withholding distribution in companies controlled by a group. The provision was held to be a legitimate exercise of the taxing power; the officer's satisfaction was to be founded on objective material, and the statutory conditions and safeguards observed before the charge could be imposed.
Ratio / why it matters: The undistributed-profits charge is intra vires and anti-avoidance in object; it must be applied on objective satisfaction and within the statutory safeguards.
Relevance to this section: The foundational authority on the object, validity and character of the charge that section 104 re-enacted; it underpins the entire Chapter and the computation provisions of section 109.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1960) 40 ITR 605 · leading authority on the validity of section 23A (added in the June 2026 revision; practitioners should confirm the precise report before citation).
Commissioner of Income-tax v. Gangadhar Banerjee & Co. (Private) Ltd. (1965) 57 ITR 176 (SC).
Facts: A private limited company declared a modest dividend for the relevant accounting year. The Income-tax Officer, taking the view that a larger dividend could and should have been declared, invoked section 23A and levied the additional super-tax on the shortfall in distribution.
Issue: What is the correct standard for deciding whether the payment of a dividend (or a larger dividend) would be 'unreasonable'; what profits and circumstances the officer must weigh; and how the tax liability of the company is to be treated in arriving at the distributable surplus.
Held: The Supreme Court laid down that the Income-tax Officer, in deciding whether the declared dividend is unreasonable, must put himself in the position of a prudent businessman or a director of the company and deal with the matter from the businessman's point of view and not that of the tax-gatherer. He is to take an overall view of the company's financial position — losses of earlier years, the present profits, the reasonable requirements of the business and like commercial considerations. Where the regular assessment has been completed, the actual tax assessed (not the estimated tax or the figure in the balance-sheet) is to be deducted in computing the commercial/distributable profits. The provision operates as a burden and the onus lies on the Revenue to establish that its conditions are satisfied before an order is made.
Ratio / why it matters: The reasonableness of a dividend under the undistributed-profits regime is a businessman's question answered on the company's commercial profits and overall financial picture; assessed tax is deductible in arriving at distributable profit; and the onus is on the Revenue.
Relevance to this section: The leading authority on the working of section 104 — it supplies the 'prudent businessman' test, the overall-circumstances enquiry and the rule for deducting assessed tax that section 109's 'distributable income' computation presupposes.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1965) 57 ITR 176 · verified via Indian Kanoon.
Commissioner of Income-tax (Central), Calcutta v. Asiatic Textiles Ltd. (1971) 82 ITR 816 (SC).
Facts: The company, carrying on business as selling agents, was assessed on a total income that left a distributable balance of about Rs. 91,116; yet its profit and loss account disclosed a net commercial loss of about Rs. 11.6 lakh, the loss being attributable to a Rs. 12 lakh fall in the value of shares it held in another mill. The Income-tax Officer levied additional super-tax under section 23A(1) on the distributable surplus thrown up by the assessment.
Issue: Whether the non-declaration of dividend was 'unreasonable' where the company, though showing an assessed distributable surplus, had in commercial terms sustained a heavy loss.
Held: The Supreme Court held that where the directors of a company had reasonable grounds for not declaring any dividend it is not open to the Income-tax Officer to constitute himself a 'super-director'. In considering whether the payment of a dividend would be unreasonable, the officer does not assess any income to tax — he only does what the directors should have done, putting himself in their place; and though the object of the section is to prevent avoidance of tax, the provision must be worked not from the standpoint of the tax-collector but from that of a businessman. The substantial commercial loss was a relevant and, on the facts, decisive consideration.
Ratio / why it matters: The Income-tax Officer is not a 'super-director'; reasonableness is judged commercially and a genuine capital/commercial loss is a legitimate ground for withholding dividend, notwithstanding a positive assessed surplus.
Relevance to this section: Applies the Gangadhar Banerjee / Bipinchandra principle to a stark fact-pattern under section 104's predecessor; squarely relevant to the 'smallness of profit / losses' proviso to section 104.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1971) 82 ITR 816 · verified via CaseMine.
Cluster C-2 : Distributable income, against which the reduced minimum is measured (cross-referenced from section 109)
Commissioner of Income-tax, Bombay City v. Bipinchandra Maganlal & Co. Ltd. (1961) 41 ITR 290 (SC).
Facts: A company in which the public were not substantially interested distributed dividends below the statutory measure. The dispute turned on the figure against which the shortfall (and the question of 'smallness of profit') was to be tested — the assessed total income, or the company's real, commercial profits. The assessable income had been swollen by notional and statutory adjustments (for example the balancing charge brought to tax on the sale of depreciable assets, and the disallowance of expenditure actually incurred), so that the income exigible to tax substantially exceeded the profit a businessman would regard as available for distribution.
Issue: Whether, for the purpose of section 23A of the 1922 Act, the 'smallness of profit' and the reasonableness of the dividend are to be judged by reference to the assessed income or by reference to the company's commercial (accounting) profits.
Held: The Supreme Court held that the 'smallness of profit' must be adjudged in the light of commercial or accounting profits, and not the assessable income. In arriving at the assessable profits the Income-tax Officer may disallow many expenses actually incurred and may, in computing income, include many items on a notional basis; profits assessed for tax are therefore not the same thing as the commercial profits out of which alone a dividend can in fact be paid. It is the latter that govern the reasonableness enquiry.
Ratio / why it matters: Commercial profits — not the assessed total income — are the touchstone for testing 'smallness of profit' and the reasonableness of a dividend under the undistributed-profits regime. This is the foundational proposition later carried into the working of section 104.
Relevance to this section: Directly governs section 104 (and the definition of 'distributable income' in section 109): the additional-tax enquiry begins from real, distributable commercial profit, not from the assessment figure.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1961) 41 ITR 290 · verified via Indian Kanoon / CaseMine.
D. PRACTITIONER'S NOTE
Candid note (accuracy discipline): Section 107A was a relief inserted in 1964 and omitted in 1988; it did not generate a distinct, well-known reported Supreme Court corpus of its own and was applied as a computational reduction within section 104 assessments. The decisions digested above are reported on the operative charging provision and its classification threshold (section 104 and its 1922-Act predecessor, section 23A) and are reproduced here because the courts decided them on the integrated scheme; no authority has been invented to fill a gap.
(1) Where a historical section 104 order ignored a legitimate section 107A reduction, that is a live computational error reducing or extinguishing the additional tax.
(2) The reduction is measured against 'distributable income' as defined in section 109 — verify that base first, applying the commercial-profits principle (Bipinchandra; Gangadhar Banerjee).
E. SOURCES & CITATIONS
Statutory composition verified against the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Bare Act as amended by the Finance Act, 2025), Chapter XI, which records: “[Chapter XI omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988. While sections 95 to 103 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1965, w.e.f. 1-4-1965, sections 104 to 109 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988.]” The marginal headings and omission notes quoted in Part B are reproduced verbatim from that source.
Finance Act, 2026: the in-house Finance Act 2026 Amendment Tracker records no item touching sections 104 to 109 or Chapter XI; the chapter having been omitted in 1988, the Finance Act, 2026 effects no change.
Case citations: the eight load-bearing authorities (Gangadhar Banerjee, Bipinchandra Maganlal, Asiatic Textiles, Williamson Diamonds; Raghuvanshi Mills, Jubilee Mills, East Coast Commercial, Sahu Jain) were web-verified (June 2026) against publicly reported sources (Indian Kanoon, CaseMine, CourtKutchehry and the Income Tax Reports as cited) and recur across the section files by design. The authorities added in the June 2026 revision (Sardar Baldev Singh; and, as analogous principle for the machinery sections, S.S. Gadgil, K.M. Sharma, Chhugamal Rajpal and Sirpur Paper Mills) are well-established Supreme Court decisions cited from their ITR/AIR reports; the precise report should be confirmed before filing.
Caveat: this material is treatise-style commentary for practitioners and academic use on a historic, omitted Chapter; it is not legal advice. Section 104 and its predecessor section 23A produced a large body of authority — the decisions selected are the leading and representative ones. Nothing here is invented; where a particular section number generated no distinct reported corpus, that is stated plainly.
CHAPTER XI — ADDITIONAL INCOME-TAX ON UNDISTRIBUTED PROFITS
SECTION 107A — REDUCTION OF MINIMUM DISTRIBUTION IN CERTAIN CASES
Case Laws & Commentary · Income-tax Act, 1961 (as amended by the Finance Act, 2026) · Historic / Omitted Provision
Status: OMITTED. Section 107A was omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, with effect from 1 April 1988.
Life of the provision: Section 107A was INSERTED by the Finance Act, 1964, with effect from 1 April 1964 (verbatim note from the Bare Act: “Original section was inserted by the Finance Act, 1964, w.e.f. 1-4-1964”); it was omitted, with the rest of Chapter XI, by the Finance Act, 1987 w.e.f. 1-4-1988.
Predecessor: section 23A of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 (in its post-Finance Act, 1955 form, under which the additional tax fell on the company itself rather than being deemed a dividend in the shareholders' hands). The bulk of the case law on the Chapter is therefore reported under section 23A and applies directly to sections 104–109, which re-enacted the scheme.
Finance Act, 2026 impact: None. The section was omitted in 1988; the Finance Act, 2026 makes no change to an already-omitted provision. Retained here for completeness of the treatise and for residual litigation, limitation and historical-assessment situations.
A. SECTION COMMENTARY
A.1 Function — a relief reducing the required distribution
Section 107A was a relieving provision inserted in 1964. It allowed the statutory minimum distribution otherwise required under section 104 to be reduced in defined cases — principally to recognise that a company which had ploughed back profits into capital expenditure on a new or expanding industrial undertaking, or into similar productive investment, ought not to be penalised for retaining (rather than distributing) the profits so applied. It thus reconciled the anti-hoarding objective of section 104 with the national policy of encouraging industrial investment.
A.2 The operative scheme (editorial summary)
Editorial summary, not verbatim text (verbatim text belongs in the companion Block-1 file): where a company satisfied the conditions specified in section 107A (broadly, the application of profits to qualifying capital/industrial purposes), the minimum amount it was obliged to distribute under section 104 was reduced accordingly, with a corresponding reduction in its exposure to the additional tax. The relief operated as a deduction from, or scaling-down of, the section 104 distribution requirement.
A.3 Doctrinal themes
Section 107A shares the interpretive DNA of the incentive deductions: a relieving provision advancing an industrial-policy object is construed to give effect to that object, while the conditions for the relief are applied as enacted. In operation, however, every section 107A computation still presupposed the section 104 charge and the commercial-profits / distributable-income framework of sections 104 and 109; the validity and object of that charge (Sardar Baldev Singh) and the commercial-profits measure (Gangadhar Banerjee; Bipinchandra Maganlal) therefore remain the governing authorities.
A.4 Repeal
Omitted by the Finance Act, 1987 w.e.f. 1-4-1988; no change by the Finance Act, 2026.
B. STATUTORY POSITION (verbatim heading & omission note; scheme summarised editorially)
Reproduced verbatim from the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Bare Act, as amended by the Finance Act, 2025):
Reduction of minimum distribution in certain cases.
107A. [Omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988. Original section was inserted by the Finance Act, 1964, w.e.f. 1-4-1964.]
Chapter note (verbatim): [Chapter XI omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988. While sections 95 to 103 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1965, w.e.f. 1-4-1965, sections 104 to 109 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988.]
C. CASE LAW — CLUSTERED BY ISSUE
Cluster C-0 : Validity and object of the charge that section 107A relieves (cross-referenced from section 104)
Sardar Baldev Singh v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Delhi & Ajmer (1960) 40 ITR 605 (SC).
Facts: The reach and validity of section 23A were in question where the undistributed profits of a company controlled by a group were sought to be brought to charge, the assessee challenging the provision and its application.
Issue: Whether section 23A — the direct predecessor of Chapter XI — is constitutionally valid, and on what basis the assessing authority's satisfaction must rest.
Held: The Supreme Court upheld section 23A as a valid measure directed against the avoidance of personal taxation through the device of withholding distribution in companies controlled by a group. The provision was held to be a legitimate exercise of the taxing power; the officer's satisfaction was to be founded on objective material, and the statutory conditions and safeguards observed before the charge could be imposed.
Ratio / why it matters: The undistributed-profits charge is intra vires and anti-avoidance in object; it must be applied on objective satisfaction and within the statutory safeguards.
Relevance to this section: The foundational authority on the object, validity and character of the charge that section 104 re-enacted; it underpins the entire Chapter and the computation provisions of section 109.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1960) 40 ITR 605 · leading authority on the validity of section 23A (added in the June 2026 revision; practitioners should confirm the precise report before citation).
Cluster C-1 : The section 104 charge that section 107A reduces (cross-referenced)
Commissioner of Income-tax v. Gangadhar Banerjee & Co. (Private) Ltd. (1965) 57 ITR 176 (SC).
Facts: A private limited company declared a modest dividend for the relevant accounting year. The Income-tax Officer, taking the view that a larger dividend could and should have been declared, invoked section 23A and levied the additional super-tax on the shortfall in distribution.
Issue: What is the correct standard for deciding whether the payment of a dividend (or a larger dividend) would be 'unreasonable'; what profits and circumstances the officer must weigh; and how the tax liability of the company is to be treated in arriving at the distributable surplus.
Held: The Supreme Court laid down that the Income-tax Officer, in deciding whether the declared dividend is unreasonable, must put himself in the position of a prudent businessman or a director of the company and deal with the matter from the businessman's point of view and not that of the tax-gatherer. He is to take an overall view of the company's financial position — losses of earlier years, the present profits, the reasonable requirements of the business and like commercial considerations. Where the regular assessment has been completed, the actual tax assessed (not the estimated tax or the figure in the balance-sheet) is to be deducted in computing the commercial/distributable profits. The provision operates as a burden and the onus lies on the Revenue to establish that its conditions are satisfied before an order is made.
Ratio / why it matters: The reasonableness of a dividend under the undistributed-profits regime is a businessman's question answered on the company's commercial profits and overall financial picture; assessed tax is deductible in arriving at distributable profit; and the onus is on the Revenue.
Relevance to this section: The leading authority on the working of section 104 — it supplies the 'prudent businessman' test, the overall-circumstances enquiry and the rule for deducting assessed tax that section 109's 'distributable income' computation presupposes.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1965) 57 ITR 176 · verified via Indian Kanoon.
Commissioner of Income-tax (Central), Calcutta v. Asiatic Textiles Ltd. (1971) 82 ITR 816 (SC).
Facts: The company, carrying on business as selling agents, was assessed on a total income that left a distributable balance of about Rs. 91,116; yet its profit and loss account disclosed a net commercial loss of about Rs. 11.6 lakh, the loss being attributable to a Rs. 12 lakh fall in the value of shares it held in another mill. The Income-tax Officer levied additional super-tax under section 23A(1) on the distributable surplus thrown up by the assessment.
Issue: Whether the non-declaration of dividend was 'unreasonable' where the company, though showing an assessed distributable surplus, had in commercial terms sustained a heavy loss.
Held: The Supreme Court held that where the directors of a company had reasonable grounds for not declaring any dividend it is not open to the Income-tax Officer to constitute himself a 'super-director'. In considering whether the payment of a dividend would be unreasonable, the officer does not assess any income to tax — he only does what the directors should have done, putting himself in their place; and though the object of the section is to prevent avoidance of tax, the provision must be worked not from the standpoint of the tax-collector but from that of a businessman. The substantial commercial loss was a relevant and, on the facts, decisive consideration.
Ratio / why it matters: The Income-tax Officer is not a 'super-director'; reasonableness is judged commercially and a genuine capital/commercial loss is a legitimate ground for withholding dividend, notwithstanding a positive assessed surplus.
Relevance to this section: Applies the Gangadhar Banerjee / Bipinchandra principle to a stark fact-pattern under section 104's predecessor; squarely relevant to the 'smallness of profit / losses' proviso to section 104.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1971) 82 ITR 816 · verified via CaseMine.
Cluster C-2 : Distributable income, against which the reduced minimum is measured (cross-referenced from section 109)
Commissioner of Income-tax, Bombay City v. Bipinchandra Maganlal & Co. Ltd. (1961) 41 ITR 290 (SC).
Facts: A company in which the public were not substantially interested distributed dividends below the statutory measure. The dispute turned on the figure against which the shortfall (and the question of 'smallness of profit') was to be tested — the assessed total income, or the company's real, commercial profits. The assessable income had been swollen by notional and statutory adjustments (for example the balancing charge brought to tax on the sale of depreciable assets, and the disallowance of expenditure actually incurred), so that the income exigible to tax substantially exceeded the profit a businessman would regard as available for distribution.
Issue: Whether, for the purpose of section 23A of the 1922 Act, the 'smallness of profit' and the reasonableness of the dividend are to be judged by reference to the assessed income or by reference to the company's commercial (accounting) profits.
Held: The Supreme Court held that the 'smallness of profit' must be adjudged in the light of commercial or accounting profits, and not the assessable income. In arriving at the assessable profits the Income-tax Officer may disallow many expenses actually incurred and may, in computing income, include many items on a notional basis; profits assessed for tax are therefore not the same thing as the commercial profits out of which alone a dividend can in fact be paid. It is the latter that govern the reasonableness enquiry.
Ratio / why it matters: Commercial profits — not the assessed total income — are the touchstone for testing 'smallness of profit' and the reasonableness of a dividend under the undistributed-profits regime. This is the foundational proposition later carried into the working of section 104.
Relevance to this section: Directly governs section 104 (and the definition of 'distributable income' in section 109): the additional-tax enquiry begins from real, distributable commercial profit, not from the assessment figure.
Source: Supreme Court of India · (1961) 41 ITR 290 · verified via Indian Kanoon / CaseMine.
D. PRACTITIONER'S NOTE
Candid note (accuracy discipline): Section 107A was a relief inserted in 1964 and omitted in 1988; it did not generate a distinct, well-known reported Supreme Court corpus of its own and was applied as a computational reduction within section 104 assessments. The decisions digested above are reported on the operative charging provision and its classification threshold (section 104 and its 1922-Act predecessor, section 23A) and are reproduced here because the courts decided them on the integrated scheme; no authority has been invented to fill a gap.
(1) Where a historical section 104 order ignored a legitimate section 107A reduction, that is a live computational error reducing or extinguishing the additional tax.
(2) The reduction is measured against 'distributable income' as defined in section 109 — verify that base first, applying the commercial-profits principle (Bipinchandra; Gangadhar Banerjee).
E. SOURCES & CITATIONS
Statutory composition verified against the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Bare Act as amended by the Finance Act, 2025), Chapter XI, which records: “[Chapter XI omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988. While sections 95 to 103 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1965, w.e.f. 1-4-1965, sections 104 to 109 were omitted by the Finance Act, 1987, w.e.f. 1-4-1988.]” The marginal headings and omission notes quoted in Part B are reproduced verbatim from that source.
Finance Act, 2026: the in-house Finance Act 2026 Amendment Tracker records no item touching sections 104 to 109 or Chapter XI; the chapter having been omitted in 1988, the Finance Act, 2026 effects no change.
Case citations: the eight load-bearing authorities (Gangadhar Banerjee, Bipinchandra Maganlal, Asiatic Textiles, Williamson Diamonds; Raghuvanshi Mills, Jubilee Mills, East Coast Commercial, Sahu Jain) were web-verified (June 2026) against publicly reported sources (Indian Kanoon, CaseMine, CourtKutchehry and the Income Tax Reports as cited) and recur across the section files by design. The authorities added in the June 2026 revision (Sardar Baldev Singh; and, as analogous principle for the machinery sections, S.S. Gadgil, K.M. Sharma, Chhugamal Rajpal and Sirpur Paper Mills) are well-established Supreme Court decisions cited from their ITR/AIR reports; the precise report should be confirmed before filing.
Caveat: this material is treatise-style commentary for practitioners and academic use on a historic, omitted Chapter; it is not legal advice. Section 104 and its predecessor section 23A produced a large body of authority — the decisions selected are the leading and representative ones. Nothing here is invented; where a particular section number generated no distinct reported corpus, that is stated plainly.