(1.) THE suit out of which this second appeal arises was brought in the Court of Munsiff Ramban by the respondent against the appellant for dissolution of partnership and rendition of accounts. The suit was based on an agreement which is admittedly an unregistered partnership deed. The trial Court, the Munsiff Ramban, passed a preliminary decree dated 11 -5 -1965 against which an appeal was preferred before the District Judge, Bhaderwah. The District Judge, Bhaderwah affirmed the decree of the trial Court by his decree under appeal dated 28 -2 -1969.
(2.) ONLY one point was argued by the learned counsel for the appellant in this appeal and that is that the so -called partnership deed was unregistered and as such the present suit could not lie. The learned counsel for the appellant placed reliance on Section 17 (1) of the Registration Act of the State. Section 17 (1) mentions documents which shall be registered, in other words the registration of which is compulsory, and under sub -clause (d) of the said Section, a partnership deed is one of the documents which has to be compulsorily registered. Effect of non -registration of documents which are required to be registered is mentioned in Section 49 of the Registration Act. Section 49 of the Registration Act reads as under: - "No document required by Section 17 (or by any provision of the Transfer of Property Act) to be registered shall - (a) affect any immovable property comprised therein, or (b) confer any power to adopt or, (c) be received as evidence of any transaction affecting such property or conferring such power, unless it has been registered".
(3.) MR . Kotwal argued that all documents mentioned in Section 17 (1) are to be registered irrespective of the fact what property was to be affected by the document. A partnership deed was a document which was compulsorily registrable and therefore as the present document was not registered it would be inadmissible in evidence. If a partnership deed was not intended to be registered under some circumstances or that it should not be in same cases hit by the provision of Section 49 of the Registration Act there was no purpose in adding these words in the list of documents compulsorily registrable. For this proposition of law he has asked us to place a harmonious construction on these two, sections i. e., Section 17 (1) (d) and Section 49 otherwise according to him the insertion of the words partnership deed in Section 17 (1) (d) of the Registration Act becomes superfluous. He has invited our attention to: (i) AIR 1957 Pat 375 (FB) (ii) AIR 1961 Andh Pra 201 (FB) (iii) AIR 1964 SC 766 (iv) AIR 1965 Andh Pra 274 (FB) and (v) AIR 1965 Mad 1 (FB).