The main legal point established in the judgment is the limitation on amending an insolvency petition after the expiration of the time limit fixed by the Provincial Insolvency Act, and the requirement for the petition to include all necessary parties as respondents.

Cornish, J.

1. An insolvency petition was filed on 27th August 1929 against the debtors, who are the petitioners in this civil revision petition. In the insolvency petition one Kochi S. Vaithina-thier is named as the petitioner. In para. 4 of the petition it is stated Petitioner is the managing partner of a family firm consisting of himself and his first paternal cousins K.Vaithinathier and Vishwanathier.

2. In para. 9 are set out various acts of insolvency by the respondents on dates ranging from 11th August to 13th August 1929. within the period of three months from the date of the filing of the petition.

3. On 16th September, K. Vaithinathier made application Under Section 16, Provincial Insolvency Act, to be substituted for Kochi S. Vaithinathier on the ground of Kochis want of due diligence in proceeding with the petition, but this petition was dismissed as want of diligence had not been established.

4. On 10th October Kochi applied to have his partner Viswanathier added as a party to the petition; and this man was added a respondent. On 20th December Kochi made a further application to have his other partner Vaithinathier made a party to the petition. This was dismissed on the ground that a creditor could not be made a party to the petition after the expiry of three months from the date of the act of insolvency.

5. The insolvency petition came on for hearing in March 1930 and was dismissed; the Subordinate Judge holding that it was not maintainable on account of the nonjoinder in the petition of all the partners of the firm to which the respondents were alleged to be indebted.

6. On appeal the lower Courts order was set aside. The learned District Judge held that the power of the Court sue motu to add necessary parties in a fit case was unfettered, and he remanded the insolvency petition for rehearing after the third partner Vaithinathier had been made a party.

7. The principal question argued on behalf of the petitioners here (the debtors) is whether, having regard to Section 9, Provincial Insolvency Act, the amendment of the petition could be made. Section 9(1), Clause (c), provides that a creditor shall not be entitled to present an insolvency petition against a debtor unless the act of insolvency on which the petition is grounded has occurred within three months before the presentation of the petition. Reliance is placed on In re Maund [1895] 1 Q.B. 194, where it was held by a Divisional Court consisting of Vaughan Williams and Wright, JJ., that a petition will not be allowed to be amended by adding a petitioner after three months from the date of the act of bankruptcy. At p. 197 Vaughan Williams, J., said:

It is perfectly clear that the Court ought not to allow, after three months have elapsed from the date of the committal of the act of bankruptcy, the introduction of creditors, as petitioning, creditors, who could not themselves present a petition.

8. And a little further on he observed Our attention was called to several cases which, it was said, established that the power of amendment could be exercised after the three months had elapsed. In all these cases, however it will be seen that the person added was not essential to the petition by virtue of the requirement of the Act, but only by virtue of the rules of practice of the bankruptcy Court.

9. At p. 195, in a remark made by the learned Judge in the course of the argument, he again refers to the difference between allowing an amendment in order to conform to some rule of practice and of allowingan amendment which would have the effect of dispensing with the statutory requirement that a creditors petition must be filed within three months of the act of bankruptcy. This distinction was again emphasized In Re. a Debtor [1902] 86 L. T. 688, where a petition not properly attested under the rules of practice was allowed to be amended, Wright, J., observing This was not like a case where a new petitioning creditor is added.

10. The principle of In re Maund [1895] 1 Q.B