HON’BLE SUPREME COURT · SOURCE-REVIEWED NOTE
Dulichand Lakshminarayan v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Nagpur
Civil Appeal 195 of 1955
[1956] SCR 154 ·
Indian Income-tax Act 1922, sections 2(6B) and 26A · Indian Partnership Act 1932, section 4 · Income-tax Rules 1922, rule 2
Sources & disclosures includedDownload original judgment / order
3-judge bench · S. R. Das C.J. · N. H. Bhagwati · T. L. Venkatarama Ayyar
Assessment years: 1949–50
01 · Facts of the case
A deed purported to combine three firms, a Hindu family business and an individual in equal shares. Only the five representatives signed the registration application.
Source: Primary report: SCR 156–159
02 · Discussion by the Hon’ble Court
The deed made the constituent firms themselves partners, not merely their signatories. A firm lacked separate legal personality for entering a partnership under section 4. Even assuming all underlying individuals had joined, individual shares were not specified and each adult partner had not signed personally.
Source: Primary report: SCR 160–165
03 · Judicial decision
The High Court negative answer was upheld and appeal dismissed with costs.
Source: Primary report: SCR 165
04 · Outcome / in whose favour
Revenue succeeded; registration under section 26A was refused.
Source: Primary report: SCR 164–165
05 · AKHB REVIEW POINT
Read the deed to identify contracting persons and individual shares and verify required signatures. Recognition as a tax assessment unit is distinct from legal personality for partnership formation. Do not extend this historical ruling to differently constituted statutory entities without separate analysis.
Source: Primary report: SCR 160–165
Source & verification
Download original judgment / order · Open cited source rendition
Complete 12-page Supreme Court Reports scan. Any adjoining report fragments remain in the unchanged original and are excluded from this analysis.
Statutory scope
Historical legislation expressly identified in this note. This is not a decision under the Income-tax Act, 1961 or the Income-tax Act, 2025. Verify enacted wording, commencement, transition and subsequent judicial treatment independently before modern reliance.
Later treatment
Source checked 2026-10-23. Subsequent treatment and present-law applicability have not been comprehensively checked.
Page references identify the supplied PDF; paragraph references identify the judgment unless stated otherwise.
AI disclosure & professional disclaimer
This AKHB research note uses AI assistance and a preserved full-primary review, with refreshed exact original-byte verification. Independent human review is not represented.
General legal and tax research only; not legal or tax advice. Verify the complete judgment, applicable statutory version and subsequent treatment before reliance. AKHB REVIEW POINT is editorial analysis, not the Court’s holding.