Partner liability for firm telephone arrears can extend to personal disconnection while default continues

A partner may be treated as liable for a firm's unpaid telephone charges where the default continues and the partner remained part of the firm when the dues accrued. Applying the Indian Telegraph Act, Telegraph Rules, and the joint and several liability principle under the Partnership Act, the text states that the telephone authority could disconnect the partner's personal line for the firm's arrears. It also states that the power to disconnect under rule 443 was not spent by a prior exercise and could be used again while the default subsisted and a line remained available for disconnection.

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Issues: Whether a partner's personal telephone connection could be disconnected for arrears due in respect of the firm's telephone connection, and whether the power to disconnect under the relevant telephone rules was exhausted after being exercised once.

Analysis: Under the Indian Telegraph Act and the Telegraph Rules, a subscriber in default of payment of telephone charges could have telephone connections disconnected. The partnership firm was not a separate legal entity distinct from its partners for the purpose of such liability, and the liability of the firm's telephone charges was the joint and several liability of all partners under section 25 of the Indian Partnership Act, 1932. As the petitioner remained a partner when the dues accrued and default continued, the arrears of the firm could be recovered against him, and his personal telephone could also be disconnected under rule 443. The contention that the power of disconnection was exhausted once exercised was rejected, because the authority could act so long as the default subsisted and telephone lines remained available for disconnection.

Conclusion: The personal telephone line was validly disconnected for the firm's arrears, and the power under rule 443 was not exhausted by its earlier exercise.

Final Conclusion: The petitioner's challenge to the disconnection failed, as the impugned action was held to be within the Telephone Department's authority under the governing rules.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a partnership firm's telephone charges are in arrears, every partner may be treated as liable for the dues, and the telephone authority may disconnect another telephone of the same defaulting subscriber under the applicable rules until the default is cleared.

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