Subramaniampillai V. Wickremasekere Et Al.,

 

1941     Present: Moseley S.P J. and Keuneman J.

 

SUBRAMANIAMPILLAI v. WICKREMASEKERE  et al



130-D. C. Chilaw, 11,447.

 

Business Names Registration Ordinance (Cap. 120), ss. 4 (I) (d) and 9 (1) - Registration of business by firm-Failure to register names of individuals -Default fatal to action.

 

Where a firm in registering its business under the Business Names Registration Ordinance failed to furnish the names of each of its individual partners,-

 

Held, that there had been such a substantial failure to comply with the requirements of the Ordinance as to amount to a default within the meaning of section 9 (1) of the Ordinance.

 

Murugappah Chettiar et al. v. Ramanathan Chettiar (39 N. L. R. 231) referred to.

 

APPEAL from a judgment of the District Judge of Chilaw. N. Nadarajah, for plaintiff, appellant.

 

N. E. Weerasooria, K.C. (with him Cyril E. S. Perera), for defendant, respondent. 

Cur. adv. vult.

 

September 16, 1941. KEUNEMAN J.-

 

This is an action on mortgage bond No. 6,830 of November 25, 1927. Action was brought on a copy of the bond, the original bond being filed in D. C. Chilaw, No. 11,202, in which case the present third defendant sued upon the same bond. That action was dismissed on the ground that, the name of the third defendant (A. S. A. N. Narayanan Chettiar) did not appear in the Registration of Business Names as a partner of the firm of A. S. A. N. (vide I. D. 2).

 

Under the bond any one of the three obligees mentioned was entitled to sue on it.

 

In the present case the same defence under the Business Names Regis­tration Ordinance (Chapter 120) has been raised against the present plaintiff, A. S. A. N. Caruppen Chettiar. Caruppen Chettiar was no party to the action in D.C. Chilaw, No. 11,202. After trial, the District Judge dismissed the present action with costs.

 

Several points have been raised in this appeal. First, it was argued that Narayanan Chettiar was not a partner of the firm of A. S. A. N. The District Judge has carefully considered the evidence led. A Kanaka-pulle of the firm of A. S. A. N. gave evidence and produced the book P 3, which showed at page 40 an account under the name of the third defendant under the heading " Veyan Muthal" in Tamil. There was another account at page 39 under the name of Sabapathy, an acknowledged partner of A. S. A. N., which also bore the heading " Veyan Muthal". The Kanakapulle at first admitted that the account at page 40 was the capital account of Narayanan Chottiar, and that in each of the capital accounts appearing in the book including that of Narayanan Chettiar, interest was paid at 7 and J per cent, and that each of these was " the capital account showing

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