JUDGMENT

Bennet, J. - This is a civil revision by a plaintiff whose suit has been dismissed by the Small Cause Court on the ground that the suit was brought by an unregistered firm and that Section 1 and Section 69, Partnership Act (Act 9 of 1932) bar the suit. The plaint was headed "Firm Danmal Parshotam Das, through Sidh Gopal, one of the owners of the said firm. Section 69(2) is as follows:

No suit to enforce a right arising from a contract shall be instituted in any Court by or on behalf of a firm against any third party unless, the firm is registered and the persons suing are or have been shown in the Register of firms as partners in the firm.

2. The argument for the applicant in revision is that Section 74 of the Act prevents Section 69(2) from applying to the present case, and therefore the present plaint is a valid plaint. In this connexion we may observe that Section 1(3) provides in regard to the Act:

It shall come into force on 1st day of October 1932, except Section 69 which shall come into force on 1st day of October 1938.

3. The Act therefore provided that this particular Section 69, which requires that a suit shall only be instituted on behalf of a registered firm, was not to apply for a period of one year after the rest of the Act came into force. The conclusion to be drawn from this provision is that the Legislature intended that an opportunity should be given to unregistered firms to be registered before the somewhat drastic provisions of Section 69 were enforced against those firms. For the applicant Mr. Seth argued that this provision was only intended to operate in regard to causes of action which had arisen after the main portion of the Act came into force. It appears that this would be a very small matter as it is not common for a suit to be brought in regard to a cause of action arising within one year from She suit; at least so far as suits on contracts are concerned. It is more probable that the provision in Section 1, Sub-section (3) was intended to have a wider effect and to apply to all suits' which an unregistered firm desired to bring within' one year after the main provisions of the Act came into force. The argument, of learned Counsel for applicant was in regard to the meaning of Section 74, and especially of the first three clauses (a), (b) and (c) which state as follows:

Nothing in this Act or any repeal effected thereby shall affect or be deemed to affect,-"(a) any right, title, interest, obligation or liability, already acquired, accrued or incurred before the commencement of this act, or (b) any legal proceeding or remedy in respect of any such right, title, interest, obligation or liability, or anything done or suffered before the commencement of this Act, or (c) anything done or suffered before the commencement of this Act.

4. Now learned Counsel for the applicant in revision argued that the meaning of Section 74, Sub-section (b) was that any legal proceeding or remedy in respect of a right, title, interest, obligation or liability which had been mentioned in Sub-section (a), which was a right, title, interest, obligation or liability accrued or incurred before the commencement of the Act would be altogether barred from the provisions of Section 69. That is, he argued that a suit could be brought at any time even many years after 1933, if the right, title, interest, obligation or liability had been acquired, accrued or incurred before the commencement of the Act. His argument was that the last two lines of Section 74 Sub-section (b) must be read apart from the rest of the section; that is, the words "anything done or suffered before the commencement of this Act" formed an entirely separate clause and that the words "before the commencement of this Act" did not modify "any legal proceeding or remedy." There are several points to be noted in regard to this theory. The conclusion which learned Counsel desires to draw is that if the words "any legal proceeding or remedy" are not limited to any lega