PARMA NAND RAM Vs. THAKUR PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendants second appeal arising out of a suit for dissolution of partnership and for rendition of accounts. The parties are closely related to each other and in order to understand the relationship, the following pedigree may be set out.

(2.) It is an admitted fact that in 1919 there was a partition between the six branches of the family representing the grandsons of Radha Sahu. The plaintiffs contend that their family, i.e. Adit Ram and his sons and grandsons, and the family of the defendants, i.e. Moti Ram and his two sons, also separated inter se and that soon after the partition of 1919 Moti Ram and Murli Dhar - the latter's father Adit Ram being then dead - entered into a partner, ship. Paras. 6 and 7 of the plaint read as follows: (6) That soon after the agreement of 1919 Moti Ram and Murli Dhar entered into the partnership and started a firm under the name and style of Moti Ram Murli Dhar with their separate funds and for their own exclusive benefit.... (7) That in the firm of Moti Ram Murli Dhar the plaintiffs father and the plaintiffs were co-partners of eight annas and the defendants and their father were and are co-partners of the remaining eight annas.

(3.) These allegations in the plaint seem to imply that Moti Ram and Murli Dhar entered into this partnership as the heads of their respective families, the partnership being for the benefit of each of these two persons and their sons. The defence was that there had never been any separation at all between Murli Dhar and his sons on the one side and Moti Ram and his sons on the other. The two families have always been and are still joint, and therefore there was no firm or partnership, and a suit for dissolution and for rendition of accounts is misconceived and is not maintainable. In the alternative they pleaded that, since Murli Dhar, the father of the plaintiffs, died on 20 April 1930, the suit is barred by limitation under Section 106, Limitation Act. Both the Courts below have decreed the mi if and the defendants have come to this Court in second appeal. The first plea taken by learned Counsel for the defendants-appellants is that the learned Judge of the lower Appellate Court has misdirected himself in taking the view that by reason of the partition of 1919 there is no longer any presumption of jointness as between the parties to this litigation. Assuming without deciding, that this plea is well founded, it is obvious from a perusal of the judgment of the lower Appellate Court that the finding of the learned Judge that the parties are separate from each other is based on the evidence which is on the record. The learned Judge says: In view of all the above documentary and oral evidence I agree with the finding of the learned Munsif that the parties have been living separata from the year 1919 or even before that and that they are only partners of the firm Murli Dhar Moit Ram.