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The Court may frame the issues from all or any of the following materials: (a) allegations made on oath by the parties, or by any persons present on their behalf, or made by the pleaders of such parties: (b) allegations made in the pleadings or in answers to interrogatories delivered in the suit; and (c) the contents of documents produced by either party.

5. Learned Counsel for the respondent admits that he cannot show that there were any such materials before the lower appellate Court for the issue on which it has decided the appeal. The plaintiff nowhere pleaded that the defendants were partners in a firm. It is, therefore, impossible for the Court below to hold that he has failed to prove that he never pleaded. Learned Counsel argued that although the written statements did not contain any reference to partnership yet the written statements might be in his opinion construed to mean that the defendants were not partners in the firm at Chit Baragaon. Even if any such inference were to be read into the written statements a mere pleading of such a negative by the defendants would be no reply to the positive assertion of the plaintiff that the firm in question was a firm belonging to the joint Hindu family. A partnership firm and a joint family firm are essentially different. The definition of "partnership" in Section 239, Contract Act, deals with a relation which subsists between persons. That is, there must be more persons than one. But in the General Clauses Act, Section 3(39), "person" is defined to include any company or association or body of individuals whether incorporated or not.