Partnership registration records prevail over a mistaken proprietorship assumption when departmental filings and admissions support partnership status.

A notice proposing cancellation of registration on the premise that the business was a proprietorship could not be sustained where Form D, filed during the original dealer's lifetime, and the department's own records showed the petitioner and family members as partners. Admissions in the counter-affidavit and prior directions to restore partnership status reinforced that position. The court held that the pendency of civil disputes between private parties did not prevent the department from correcting its registration records on the materials already before it. The impugned notice was quashed, the business was treated as a partnership concern, and the registration records were directed to be restored accordingly.

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Issues: Whether the impugned notice proposing cancellation of registration on the footing that the business was a proprietorship concern was valid, and whether the dealer was required to be recognised as a partnership concern on the basis of the Form D application and the department's own records.

Analysis: The records showed that Form D had been filed in February 1986 during the lifetime of the original dealer, disclosing the names of the petitioner and other family members as partners. The counter-affidavit itself contained admissions consistent with a partnership status and also recorded directions from the Commissioner to restore that status. In those circumstances, the assumption in the impugned notice that the business was a proprietorship concern, and the consequent proposal to cancel the registration, could not be sustained. The pendency of civil proceedings between private parties did not prevent the department from correcting its own registration records on the basis of the materials available before it.

Conclusion: The notice was illegal and unenforceable. The business was held to be a partnership concern, and the registration was directed to be restored accordingly.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition succeeded, the impugned notice was quashed, and the departmental records were directed to reflect the partnership status of the dealer.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the department's own records and prior statutory filings establish that a business was registered as a partnership concern, a subsequent notice treating it as a proprietorship and proposing cancellation on that mistaken premise cannot stand.

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