SHANTILAL Vs. RAM GOPAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from an order of the First Additional Subordinate Judge Moradabad passed on an application for restitution under Section 144, Civil Procedure Code. The plaintiff in the suit was Seth Ram Gopal. He sued for dissolution of a partnership in two ginning factories; one at Saharanpur and the other at Chandausi, and for partition of its assets. The suit was defended on the ground that the partnership was illegal owing to the fact that there were more than 20 share-holders in the factory from the very beginning. There were two other suits, also brought by Seth Ram Gopal, for dissolution of partnership in respect of two other factories at Chandausi. In each case the principal defendant was Rai Bahadur Mewa Ram. All the three suits were decreed by the Subordinate Judge of Moradabad, but we are concerned only with the suit dealing with factory at Saharaupur and the old Ginning Factory at Chandausi.

(2.) In this case the decree of the Subordinate Judge included the direction that a Receiver should be appointed. This order was passed on the 10 August, 1922. On the 23 August, 1922, the parties came before the Court and agreed that the defendant No. 1, R.B. Mewa Ram, should be appointed manager of the factory at Saharanpur and the plaintiff Seth Ram Gopal of the old Ginning Factory at Chandausi. Clearly this agreement was entered into by the parties in order to avoid the appointment of an outside person as a Receiver. Against the decree an appeal was preferred by the defendant and was allowed by a Bench of this Court on the 31 of May, 1926. The two Judges who heard this appeal disagreed and the point of law on which they disagreed was referred to a third Judge. The decision as stated in the head-note of the report in Mewa Ram V/s. Ram Gopal as is follows. When an association formed for the purposes of gain is unregistered, although under the law it ought to have been registered, and the business of the association has been doing on for some years, none of its members can sue in a court of law for partition of the existing assets.

(3.) On this finding the appeal was allowed and the suit was dismissed. The defendant, R.B. Mewa Ram, had in the meantime died, and on the 11th November, 1926, his adopted son, Lala Shanti Ram, made a petition for restitution under Section 144, Civil Procedure Code. He sought inter alia to be put into possession of the old Gigning Factory at Chandausi which under the agreement of the 23 August, 1922, had been given over to Seth Ram Gopal for management. This is the sole question which is now before us in appeal.