VENKATAVARADAN Vs. K. JANARDANAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant in this appeal is an individual by name Vinkatavaradan. The respondent is one Janardanan. A (sic) was obtain d by Janardanan against Venkatavaradan for Rs. 14,413.80. Venkatavaradat, whom, I shall (sic) as the judgment debtor, applied in E.A. 516 of 1976, for stay of excition of (sic) him clearing that he was an agriculturist entitled to the benefits of the Tamil Nadu Indebted Agriculturists (Temporary Relief) Act, 1976 (Act XV of 1976). He asserted that he was not assessed either to Central Income Tax or to agricultural Income Tax or to sales tax either under the state Law or under the Central Law for the years 1971 -72 to 1974 -75. The application for stay of execution was opposed by Janardanan, the decree -holder. He urged that the judgment -debtor was not entitled to invoke Tamil Nadu Act XV of 1976 as an agriculturist. The reason given was that the judgment -debtor was a partner in a firm called 'Rajagopal Chetti and Sons' and the partnership firm was assessed to sales tax under the Tamil Nadu Saks Tax Act 1959. The relevant sales tax assessment orders on the firm were produced in support.

(2.) THE learned Subordinate Judge up -heled the decree -holder's objection. He rejected the judgment debtor's claim for relief as an agriculturist within the meaning of that expression in Act XV of 1976. While so doing the learned. Judge hoisted the judgment -debtor, as it were, on the 'horns of a dilemma'. The learned Judge considered the judgment -debtor in this regard, both as an individual and as a member of a partnership firm. Considering the position from the view point of the firm, the learned Judge reasoned that the firm" was not entitled to invoke the Act, because it expressly excluded partnership firms from the purview of the definition of 'agriculturist'. On the other hand, if the judgment -debtor were considered as an individual, even then, according to the learned Judge, the judgment -debtor could not shed his character as an individual member of the partnership which, admittedly, had been assessed to sales tax in which case, again, he must stand excluded from the definition of agriculturist. In either case, according to the learned Subordinate Judge, the judgment -debtor was disentitled, from, invoking the benefits of Act XV of 1976.

(3.) I agree with the submissions made by Mr. Ramaswami. It may be that purists in legal theory may not accept partnership firms as possessing some juristic personality of their own, distinct from the members composing the partnerships. Indeed the theory is often expressed by saying that a firm is merely a convenient class -name or description, to denote compendiously the individuals who have agreed to become partners. This view of partnership is alike opposed to the accountant's conception and the business -man's idea of a partnership firm, which is to regard a firm as an entity distinct from its members. The Indian Partnership Act, 1932 contains express provisions for expulsion of partners, retirement of partners, admission of new partners and for continuance of the same firm despite the death or retirement of partners or the introduction of new partners, etc. These provisions in the statute are inconsistent with the puristic conception of a partnership firm as a non -person. As pointed out by the Privy Council in Bhogwanji v. Alembic Chemical Works , our law is more in line with Scots law than with English law when it sees in a partnership firm a limited personality or gives it some kind of a quasi -corporate status. So far as, Tamil Nadu Act XV of 1976 is concerned which is presently under discussion, while the interpretation clause in Section 2(b) defires an agriculturist as a 'person' who owns an interest in law and is in possession thereof by virtue of that interest there is a saving Clause (i) under which a partnership firm registered under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932, is not to be regarded as an agriculturist. This way of defining an agriculturist as a 'person' and at the same breath, excluding a firm from the ambit of that definition evidence, in my view, a legislative intention to regard the firm itself as a person or entity, quite apart from the partners constituting it. From this, it must follow that the judgment -debtor cannot be denied his statutory position as an agriculturist for no other reason than that he is a partner of the firm of 'Rajagopal Chetti and Sons'.