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After the award was made on 9th July, 1984, O.P. No. 230 of 1984 was filed by S.V. Chandrapandian & Ors. for a direction to the arbitrators to file their award in Court which was done. Thereupon, the applicants S.V. Chanrapandian and others filed a Misc. Application No. 3503 of 1984 requesting the Court to pass a decree in terms of the award. Before orders could be passed on that application, O.P. Nos. 247 & 275 of 1984 were filed by S.V. Sivalinga Nadar and S.V. Harikrishnan respectively under section 30 of the Arbitration Act to set aside the award. The said applications came up for hearing before a learned Single Judge of the High Court. Various points were raised and decided by the learned Single Judge but it would be sufficient for our purpose to refer to the one which we are called upon to decide in these group of appeals. That is to be found in paragraph 71 of the judgment of the learned Single Judge. The contention urged was that having regard to the allotment of partnership properties under the award, it was incumbent that the award should have been registered as required by Section 17(1) of the Registration Act and since it lacked registration, the Court had no jurisdiction to make it the rule of the Court and grant a decree in terms thereof.

Before we examine the contention based on section 17 of the Registration Act we may notice a few relevant provisions bearing on the interest of partners in partnership property as found in the Partnership Act, 1932. Section 4 defines partnership a,-, a relationship between persons who have agreed to share the profit of a business carried on by all or any of them acting for all. Section 14 provides that subject to contract between the partners, the property of the firm includes all property and rights and interests in property originally brought into the stock of the firm, or acquired, by purchase or otherwise, by or for the firm, or for the purposes and in the course of the business of the firm, and includes also the goodwill of the business. It is also clarified that unless the contrary intention appears, property and rights and interest in property acquired with money belonging to the firm shall be deemed to have been acquired for the firm. Section 15 says that the property of the firm shall be held and used by the partners exclusively for the purposes of the business subject of course to contract between the partners. Says section 18, subject to the provisions of the Act, a partner is the agent of the firm for the purposes of the business of the firm. Under section 19 the act of a partner which is done to carry on, in the usual way, business of the kind carried on by the firm, shall bind the firm. This authority to bind the firm is termed as "implied authority". Section 22 lays down that in order to bind a firm, an act or instrument done or executed by a partner or other person on behalf of the firm shall be done or executed in the firm name, or in any other manner expressing or implying an intention to bind the firm. Section 29 deals with the rights of transferee of a partner's interest. Sub-section (1) thereof provides that such a transferee will not have the same rights as the transferor-partner but he would be entitled to receive the share of profits of his transferor on the account of profits agreed to by the partners. Sub-section (2) next provides that upon dissolution of the firm or upon a transferor- partner ceasing to be a partner, the transferee would be entitled against the remaining partners to receive the share of the assets of the firm to which the transferor-partner was entitled and will also be entitled to an account as from the date of dissolution. Section 30 deals with the case of a minor admitted to the, benefits of partnership. Such a minor is given a right to his share of the property of the firm and also a right to share in the profits of the firm as may be agreed upon business share is made liable for the acts of the firm though he would not be personally liable for the same. Sub-section (4), however, debars a minor from suing the partners for an account or for his share of the property or profits of the firm except when he severe his connections with the firm, in which case for determining his share the law requires a valuation of his share in the property of the firm to be made in accordance with Section

The above provisions make it clear that regardless of the character of the property brought in by the partners on the constitution of the partnership firm or that which is acquired in the course of business of the partnership, such property shall become the property of the firm and an individual partner shall only be entitled to his share of profits, if any, accruing to the partnership from the realisation of this property and upon dissolution of the partnership to a share in the money representing the value of the property. It is well-settled that the firm is not a legal entity, it has no legal existence, it is merely a compendious name and hence the partnership property would vest in all the partners of the firm. Accordingly, each and every partner of the firm would have an interest in the perperty or asset of the firm but during its subsistence no partner can deal with any portion of the property as belonging to him, nor can be assign his interest in any specific item thereof to anyone. By virtue of the implied authority conferred as agent of the firm his action would bind the firm if it is done to carry on, in the usual way, the business of the kind carried on by the firm but the act or instrument by which the firm is sought to be bound must be done or executed in the firm name or in any other manner expressing or implying an intention to bind the firm. His right is merely to obtain such profits, if any, as may fall to his share upon the dissolution of the firm which remain after satisfying the liabilities set out in the various sub- clauses (i) to (iv) of clause (b) of section 48 of the Act. In the present case the six brothers who were carrying on business in partnership fell out on account of disputes which they could not resolve inter se. The partnership being of fixed durations could not be dissolved by any partner by notice. As they could not resolve their disputes they decided to resort to arbitration. The three arbitrators chosen by them were men of their confidence and they after giving the partners full and complete opportunity took care to first circulate a proposed award to ascertain the reaction of the disputants therein. The letter written to the arbitrators by S.V. Sivalinga Nadar dated 16th February, 1983 indicates that he was quite satisfied with the hearing given by the arbitrators. He was also by and large satisfied with the proposed award but thought it warranted certain adjustments to make it acceptable and rationale. He was of the view that the award should provide for the reallocation of the shareholdings of Madras Vanaspati Ltd., whereas Brahmaksthi Tin Factory owned by his sons should be kept out of the purview of the arbitrators since it was not the subject matter of arbitration. Then he raised some objection as to the percentage of his share and the amount found due to him. In the subsequent letter written on 9th September, 1983 he has reiterated these very objections while raising certain questions regarding valuation of partnership properties. Even the application filed under Sections 30 and 33 of the Arbitration Act in the High Court the objections to the award as enumerated in paragraph 15 mainly concerned (i) the conduct of the arbitrators who, it is alleged, acted negligently, with bias and against principles of natural justice (ii) deliberate act in leaving out certain proper- ties from consideration e.g., shareholdings of Madras Vanaspati Ltd., stock-in-trade and cash deposits, the properties of Velayudha Perumal Nadar, etc., and (iii) failure to grant him a higher share to which he was entitled. No contention was raised regarding the want of registration of the award. However, being a question of law, the learned Single Judge entertained the plea and rejected it but it found favour with the Division Bench. We now think it convenient to reproduce the relevant part of Section 17 of the Registration Act :

Strong reliance was, however, placed by the learned counsel for the respondents on two decisions of this court, namely (1) Ratan Lal Sharma v. Purshottam Harit, [1974] 3 SCR 109 and (2) Lachman Das v. Ram Lal andanr, [1989] 3 SCC 99. Insofar as the first mentioned case is concerned, the facts reveal that the appellant and the respondent who had set up a partnership business in December 1962 soon fell out. The partnership had a factory and other moveable and immoveable properties. On August 22, 1963, the partners entered into an agreement to refer the dispute to the arbitration of two persons and gave the arbitrators full authority to decide their dispute. The arbitrators made their award on September 10. 1963. Under the award exclusive allotment of the partnership assets, including the factory, and liabilities was made in favour of the appellant and it was provided that he shall be absolutely entitled to the same in consideration of a sum of Rs. 17,000 plus half the amount of realisable debts of the business to the respondent. The arbitrators filed the award in the High Court on November 8, 1963. On September 10, 1964, the respondent filed an application for determining the validity of the agreement and for setting aside the award. On May 27, 1966, a learned Single Judge of the High Court dismissed the application as barred by time but declined to make the award the rule of the court because in his view the award was void for uncertainty and created rights in favour of the appellant over immoveable property worth over Rs. 100 requiring registration. The Division Bench dismissed the appeal as not maintainable whereupon this Court was moved by special leave. Before this Court it was contended (i) that the award is not void for uncertainty-, (ii) that the award seeks to assign the respondent's share in the partnership to the appellant and therefore does not require registration; and (iii) that under section 17 of the Arbitration Act, the court was bound to pronounce judgment in accordance with the award. This court while reiterating that the share of a partner in the assets of the partnership comprising even immoveable properties, is moveable property and the assignment of the share does not require registration under section 17 of the Registration Act. The legal position is thus affirmed. However, since the award did not seek to assign the share of the respondent to the appellant but on the contrary made an exclusive allotment of the partnerShip asset including the factory and liabilities to the appellant, thereby creating an absolute interest on payment of consideration of Rs. 17,000 plus half the amount of the realisible debts, it was held to be compulsorily registrable under section 17 of the Registration Act. The Court did not depart from the principle that the share of a partner in the asset of the partnership inclusive of immoveable properties, is moveable property and the assignment of the share on dissolution of the partnership did not require registration under section 17 of the Registration Act. The decision, therefore, turned on the interpretation of the award in regard to the nature of the assignment made in favour of the appellant. So far as the second case is concerned, we think it has no bearing since that was not a case of assignment of partnership property under a dissolution deed. In that case, the dispute was between two brothers in 2-1/2 killas of land situate in Panipat, Haryana. The said land stood in the name of one brother the appellant. The respondent contended that he was a banamidar and that was the dispute which was referred to arbitration. The arbitrator made his award and applied to the court for making it the rule of the court. Objections were filed by the appellant raising various contentions. The award declared that half share of the ownership of the appellant shall "be now owned by Shri Ram Lal, the respondent in addition to his half share owned in those lands". Therefore, the award transferred half share of the appellant to the respondent and since the value thereof exceeded Rs. 100, it was held that it required registration. It is, therefore, obvious that this case has no bearing on the point in issue herein.