LATCHUMANAN Vs. SUBRAMANIAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS second appeal arises out of a suit for dissolution of partnership filed by the first respondent herein. The plaintiff and defendants 2 and 3 were partners in the first defendant firm. The plaintiff and the second defendant are brothers while the third defendant is a junior paternal uncle. The partnership commenced under a document dated 15. 4. 1964 marked as Ex. B-19. The share contributed by each of the partners was Rs. 1,500 and under the partnership deed they agreed to share the profits equally. The suit for dissolution was filed on 7. 9. 1972. While the third defendant supported the case of the plaintiff, the second defendant alone contested the same claiming that the partnership was dissolved on 31. 3. 1970 and the accounts were settled. There was another business by name Narayanan & Company run by the same partners and they had a jewellery shop in Ceylon . According to the second defendant, Narayanan & Company was allotted to the third defendant and the first defendant firm was being carried on by the second defendant himself as he was the person to whom it was allotted.

(2.) BOTH the courts below have held against the contentions raised by the second defendant and granted a decree as prayed for by the plaintiff. In this second appeal, it is contended by the second defendant that the Courts below were not justified in holding that there was no dissolution as on 31. 3. 1970 in view of Exs. B-5 to B-9 which proved beyond doubt that there was a dissolution on that date. It is also argued that the courts below were wrong in granting a decree for accounting as against the second defendant alone.

(3.) IN Sudarsanam Maistri v. Narasimhulu Maistri, I. L. R. 25 Mad. 149, Justice Bhashyam Ayyangar, one of the members of a Division Bench which decided that case after quoting from Lord Lindley in his Treatise on' Partnership' , 4th Edition, page 966, observed as follows: "the same learned author, on the authority of Pearce v. Lindsay, 3 De. G. J. , & Sm. ,page 139, says that a dissolution of a partnership at will may be inferred from circumstances, e. g. , a quarrel, although no notice to dissolve may have been given. (Lindley on' Partnership' , 5th Edition, page 572. "