Partnership registration depends on a deed specifying partner shares during the accounting year; later correction cannot create retrospective entitlement.

Entitlement to registration of a firm under section 26A depended on the existence, during the relevant year of account, of an instrument of partnership that itself specified the individual shares of the partners. A supplemental or rectifying deed executed after the accounting year could adjust inter se rights and liabilities, but it could not retrospectively create the statutory basis for registration for that assessment year. Because the original partnership deed did not specify the partners' shares and that requirement was met only by the later supplemental deed, the assessee was held not entitled to registration for the assessment year 1955-56.

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Issues: Whether the assessee firm was entitled to registration under section 26A of the Income-tax Act for the assessment year 1955-56 when the original partnership deed did not specify the individual shares of the partners and the shares were specified only by a supplemental deed executed after the close of the relevant year of account.

Analysis: For registration under section 26A, there must be a factual existence during the relevant year of account of an instrument of partnership which itself specifies the individual shares of the partners. A later rectification or supplemental deed may regulate inter se rights and liabilities from an earlier date, but it does not enlarge the statutory right of registration for the assessment year if the specification of shares came into existence only after the accounting year had ended. The original deed dated March 29, 1954 did not contain the requisite specification, and that requirement was satisfied only by the supplemental deed dated September 17, 1955.

Conclusion: The assessee was not entitled to registration for the assessment year 1955-56. The answer to the reference was in the negative and against the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Entitlement to registration of a firm under section 26A depends on the existence, during the relevant year of account, of an instrument of partnership that itself specifies the individual shares of the partners; a post-year supplemental or rectifying deed cannot confer that statutory right retrospectively.

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