Strict disclosure of partners' names and shares is mandatory for firm registration under income-tax law; refusal upheld.

Registration of a firm under section 26A was properly refused because the partnership deed and application did not disclose the names and individual shares of the partners in the component firms. The rules under section 26A require strict compliance with the prescribed form and full disclosure of all partners' names and shares to prevent registration of fictitious firms. The fact that a partnership between two firms may be treated as a partnership between their individual members for assessment purposes does not excuse non-compliance with these registration requirements. The refusal to register was therefore upheld.

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Issues: Whether registration of a firm under section 26A of the Income-tax Act was rightly refused when the instrument of partnership did not specify the names and individual shares of the partners constituting the component firms.

Analysis: Section 26A and the rules made under it require that the instrument of partnership sought to be registered must disclose the names and individual shares of the partners, and the application must conform to the prescribed form. The requirement is mandatory and is intended to prevent registration of fictitious or bogus firms. Although a partnership between two firms may, for income-tax assessment purposes, be treated as a partnership between the individual members of those firms, that principle does not dispense with compliance with the statutory requirements for registration. Since the deed and application did not set out the names or shares of the individual partners, the statutory conditions for registration were not satisfied.

Conclusion: The refusal to register the firm was correct, and the answer to the referred question was in the affirmative against the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Registration under section 26A requires strict and complete disclosure in the partnership instrument and application of the names and individual shares of all partners; absence of such disclosure is fatal, even where the larger partnership is treated as one between the individual members of the component firms for assessment purposes.

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