GRANDHE GANGAYYA Vs. GRANDHE VENKATARAMIAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question for decision is whether it is open to a member of a Hindu family, who has become divided in status, to sue for dissolution at partnership entered into between the managing member of the family and strangers, when the family was joint.

(2.) Sections 254 and 265 of the Indian Contract Act only contemplate suits by one of the partners (as defined in Section 239) for dissolution of partnership and the taking of the partnership accounts, and there is nothing in the Act which confers such right of suit on a person merely by reason of his being entitled to a share in the interests of one of the partners in the firm. Such a person cannot be in a better position than a sub-partner and it is settled law that he has no right to ask for dissolution of partnership or the taking of the partnership accounts, there being no contract or privity except between him and the partner with whom he is a sub partner.

(3.) In the present case the plaintiff was not admitted as a partner in the firm during his minority so as to enable him to the benefit of Section 247 of the Contract Act, or after he became a major so as to make him a partner within the meaning of Section 239. The only ground On which he became a partner in the firm is that he became in law a partner of the firm when the managing member of the family entered into the contract of partnership with the 3rd defendant or when, owing to a partition between himself and the other members of the family, he became entitled to a specific divided share in the joint family properties.