VELU PADAYACHI Vs. SIVASOORIAM PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This civil revision petition has been referred to a Full Bench, because of a supposed deep cleavage of opinion in the decisions of this Court on the sole question of law that arises in this civil revision petition, i. e., whether a partner in a partnership entered into for the purpose of vending arrack can file a and for the balance due on settlement of accounts when only one of the partners has obtained a licence under the Abkari Act for the vending of arrack. It was found by the District Munsif that the suit did not contravene the provisions of the Madras Abkari Act (I [1] of 1886); and so he decreed the suit i for a sum of Rs. 56-19 9 with further interest at six per cent. per annum and costs. The matter came in revision under Section 25, Provincial Small Cause Courts Act before Subba Rao J. who in view of a conflict of opinion referred the matter to a Bench. When the matter came before Satyanarayana Rao and Govinda Menon JJ., many cases other than those cited before Subba Rao J. were referred to, some of them being Bench decisions; and so they referred the matter to a Full Bench.

(2.) After the question of law that arises in this civil revision petition had been fully discussed, Mr. S. Ramachandra Aiyar for the plain, tiff contended that the licence granted to the defendant had not been produced and that there was no evidence to show either that those partners who had not been granted a licence were partners not only for the sharing of the profits but for the vending of arrack also or that the licence issued to the defendant contained conditions similar to those found in Rule 27 of the Rules framed under the Abkari Act. If that had been so, these matters should have been brought to the attention of Subba Rao J. who, if satisfied that important questions of fact necessary four the proper disposal of the civil revision petition had not been decided, would have called for findings. Nothing seems to have been said either before him, or before the Bench, which suggested that the licence might not have been granted exclusively to the defendant, or that the licence did not contain a clause that the right in it should not be transferred, or that the other parties to the partnership were not in the fullest sense of the word partners for the vending of the arrack. As these points have been taken before us for the first time, we are not prepared to consider them. The disposal of this civil revision petition must proceed on the footing that the parties to the partnership agreement sold arrack themselves or through other partners as their agents, on a licence granted to the defendant alone, in which there was a term prohibiting him from transferring his rights.

(3.) The relevant provisions of the Abkari Act are Sections 15, 55 and 56 and Rule 27 framed under the Act. Section 15 runs: