In a partnership suit, all the partners or their legal representatives must be made parties because all the parties necessary for the disposal of the subject-matter of the suit must be before the court.

JUDGMENT :- This second appeal raises a short but interesting question of law. The appellant who was the original defendant No. 1 and his two sons who were defendants 2 and 3 to the suit entered into a partnership with the respondent in respect of a business of taking forests on contract and the plaintiff-respondent filed the suit for dissolution and account of that partnership. It was common ground that the partnership was dissolved on 17th October 1947. The suit was filed on 11th June 1951 and one of the contentions raised on behalf of the defendants was that the suit was barred by limitation. Various issues were raised by the trial Court which held that defendant No. 3 was not a partner in the business and the partnership consisted of the plaintiff and defendants 1 and 2. The plaintiff in order to save the bar of limitation relied on a letter addressed by the first defendant to him on 22nd July 1949. In that letter there was a clear acknowledgment of liability made by the first defendant. Therefore, to the contention of the first defendant that the suit against him was barred by limitation, there was a complete answer furnished by this acknowledgment of liability which would have the effect of extending the period of limitation so far as he was concerned. Before the trial Court it was contended on behalf of the plaintiff that the acknowledgment of liability made by the first defendant was binding on the second defendant also because defendants 1 and 2 were partners and there was mutual agency between them. The learned Judge came to the conclusion that defendant No. 1 had implied authority to bind the second defendant by this acknowledgment of liability and he passed a preliminary decree for accounts.

2. Defendants 1 and 2 appealed to the District Court at Godhra against the decision of the trial Court. That Court in appeal held that the suit against the second defendant was barred by limitation and negatived the contention of the plaintiff that the first defendant had implied authority to bind the second defendant by the acknowledgment of liability. The District Court, however, dismissed the contention of the first defendant in that appeal that ii the suit was barred by limitation against the second defendant, it could not proceed against the first defendant the suit being a partnership suit for accounts and passed a preliminary decree for accounts against him alone. The first defendant has now come to this Court in second appeal.

3. Mr. D. V. Patel, learned counsel for the appellant, has contended that the lower appellate Court was in error in passing a preliminary decree for accounts in a firm of three partners when the suit by one partner for accounts against the other two was barred as against one of those two partners. Reliance has been placed on a decision of the Calcutta High Court in Ramdoyal v. Junmenjoy Coondoo, ILR 14 Cal 791 (A), where in a suit for partnership accounts upon objection of the defendant it was found that a necessary party defendant who was also one of the partners had been omitted and such party had been afterwards added as a defendant at a time when the suit against him was barred and it was held that the whole suit was rightly dismissed.

4. The subject-matter of a partnership suit generally is the severance of the jural relationship and the determination of the mutual rights of the partners. There being mutual agency and mutual obligation to render accounts, the position of parties in a partnership suit is in some particulars different from that of parties in an ordinary suit. Each of the partners, in a partnership suit, is really in turn plaintiff and defendant and in both capacities comes before the Court for the adjudication of his rights or liability relatively to the other partners which the Court endeavours to determine by its decree. In such a suit it is well established that a decree can go either in favour of the plaintiff against the defendant or in favour of any defendant or def