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18. After dissolution, the partnership continues only for the purpose of winding up the business, realising the assets, discharging liabilities, and adjusting the rights of the partners. The authority, rights and obligations of the partners continue only for this limited purpose. On a dissolution by the death of a partner, the representative of the deceased partner is entitled to call upon the surviving partners to account for the deceased partner's share as it stood on his death and to have his claim satisfied out of the assets of the dissolved partnership after discharging all liabilities incurred before dissolution and such only of the liabilities incurred thereafter by the surviving partners, as are incidental to and necessary for the winding up of the business (Sections 46 and 47 of the Partnership Act). The surviving partners have the right and duty to realise the partnership property and in this sense and for this purpose, they hold a fiduciary relationship towards the deceased partner's representatives as regards his interest in the partnership property Bourne, In re: Bourne v. Bourne 1 Ch. 343(1906) 3 Ch. 427 and Govindas v. Official Assignee, Madras (1934) 67 M.L.J. 167 : L.R. 61 I.A. 257 : I.L.R. 57 Mad. 931 (P.C.). The surviving partner's right to deal with and dispose of the assets of the dissolved firm or to incur fresh liabilities so as to bind the interests of the deceased partner, is limited to the purposes of realisation and winding up and for completing transactions begun but unfinished at the time of the dissolution Govindas v. Official Assignee, Madras (1934) 67 M.L.J. 167 : L.R. 61 I.A. 257 : I.L.R. 57 Mad. 931 (P.C.). Mr. T.M. Krishnaswami Aiyar has referred us to the dictum of Lord Dunedin in Hugh Stevenson and Sons v. Aktiengesellschaft Fur Carton-nagen-Industrie (1918) A.C. 239 at page 248 where His Lordship describes the position of the surviving partners as " trustees for the partners until the winding up is effected." The other learned Lords merely refer to the surviving partner as standing in a fiduciary relationship to the representatives of a deceased partner. Sir Frederick Pollock observes that the reference to the surviving partner as a " trustee " is a metaphorical and inaccurate expression (see the Law of Partnership, page 119). The surviving partners are not trustees for a deceased partner's representatives not liable to them otherwise than as debtors see Knox v. Gye (1871) L.R. 5 H.L. 656 and Gopal Chetti v. Vijayamghavachariar (1922) 43 M.L.J. 305 : L.R. 49 I.A. 181 : I.L.R. 45 Mad. 378 (P.C.) though their obligation is one in the nature of a trust, to adopt the language of the heading to Chapter IX of the Indian Trusts Act of 1882.

19. Cases relating to trustees or executors charged with the duty of selling and realising stocks and shares and securities and distributing the proceeds among the beneficiaries or legatees, were relied on by Mr. T.M. Krishnaswami Aiyar for the position that the surviving partners also came under a similar obligation to the representatives of a deceased partner ; but we are of the opinion that the analogy is apt to mislead. The surviving partners have themselves an interest in the assets of a dissolved firm and all that the law requires is that there should be no conflict between their interest and their duty to the legal representatives of the deceased partner and that they should not gain an unfair advantage over the latter. This is the principle underlying Section 88 of the Trusts Act and illustration (f) to that section. We have not therefore thought it necessary to examine in detail cases like Sculthorpe v. Tipper (1871) L.R. 13 Eq. Cases 232 and Graybum v. Clarkson (1868) 3 Ch. App. 605. relating to the liability of executors and trustees charged with the duty of sale and conversion of the properties of a deceased testator, nor is it necessary to consider the difficult questions that might rise if a continuing partner is personally responsible as executor or trustee to the persons beneficially entitled to the share of a late partner. In such cases the liability which the surviving partner might incur as a trustee or executor would be more onerous than his liability as a mere partner. In this connection it must be remembered that the representatives of a deceased partner have the remedy in their own hands and after dissolution, the Court will readily interfere at their instance by an injunction or by an appointment of a receiver, to preserve and realise the partnership assets and to prevent any act of a partner which would interfere with the rights of other partners or their representatives or impede a speedy and profitable winding up. The contention of the respondents, apparently accepted by the Court below, that a surviving partner is in the position of a trustee for the representatives of a deceased partner and is bound, at his peril, to realise all the outstandings of the dissolved firm and convert all the immoveable properties of the firm into cash immediately on a dissolution and on default, to account to the representatives of the deceased partner for the full value of such assets and outstandings as they stood on the date of dissolution with interest on such value from the date of dissolution down to the date of final decree, is, we think, unsustainable. The mere inaction of the surviving partner has not been visited with such serious consequences in any of the reported cases to which our attention has been drawn.