1) Section 54F of the Act provides that if a tax payer invests the sale proceeds received from the sale of any capital asset for buying a residential property; the long-term capital gains on sale of the property would be exempt.
2) section 54F being a beneficial provision, enacted for encouraging investment in residential houses should be liberally interpreted to include investment done in the spouse’s name too.
3) purposive construction of the legal provisions is to be preferred as against a literal construction. Further, even if the provisions of section 54F are literally constructed, there is nothing in the section to show that the house should be purchased in the name of the tax payer only.
4) The Delhi High Court observed that section 54F does not require that the new residential property should be purchased in the name of the tax payer; it merely says that the tax payer should have purchased / constructed a ‘residential house’.
5) your wife is eligible to claim benefit of LTCG