Legal query

. The learned counsel relied on the said judgment for the purpose of showing that apartnership firm under the Partnership Act has no distinct legal entity apart from the partners constituting it. Therefore, a firm has no separate rights of its own in the partnershipassets and properties. Whenever it is said about partnership assets or properties what is meant is the property or assets in which all the partners have a joint or common interest. Relying on the said judgment the learned counsel submitted that, in the instant case, only the unregisteredpartnership firm is the petitioner, no partner of the said firm has been impleaded. Therefore, this petition is at the instance of someone who is a non-entity in the eyes of law and as such the instant winding up petition is not maintainable. The learned counsel has also sought to distinguish the Supreme Court decisions cited by the learned counsel of the petitioner on the facts. The learned counsel for the company also relied on in the case of Bhawarjit Chetri v. Kedarmal Banarasilal AIR 1954 Assam 111. It was held in the said case that an unregisteredpartnership firm is not a legal entity. As such it is essential that all partners of the business should have been joined as party defendants to the action, before it can be said that the so-calledpartnership or the assets, if any, of the partnership, would be liable. The learned judges held that the decree which was granted in favour of the plaintiff and against such a partnership does not exist in the eye of law and is clearly illegal.

18. From Pollock's Digest of the Law of Partnership, it appears 'partnership is the relation which subsists between persons who have agreed to share the profits of a business carried on by all or any of them on behalf of all of them'. In the instant case, admittedly only the unregisteredpartnership firm has been impleaded as the petitioner and not its partners.

19. In order to decide the Controversy on the maintainability of a winding up petition, which has been filed by an unregistered partnership firm, the Court has to consider the import ofSection 69. As such for a proper appreciation of the dispute involved, it would be appropriate to set out Section 69 as follow...