Partnership deed construction for registration: equal sharing disclosed with sufficient certainty, so renewal refusal was unjustified.

A partnership deed satisfies the registration requirement under section 26A of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 if, read as a whole, it reasonably discloses the partners' individual shares with sufficient certainty. Here, the deed, surrounding circumstances, registration applications, and accounts all showed equal capital participation and equal division of profits among the three partners. On that construction, the instrument met the statutory requirement of specifying individual shares, and the firm was entitled to registration for the assessment year; refusal of renewal was therefore not justified.

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Issues: Whether the partnership deed specified the individual shares of the partners so as to entitle the firm to registration under section 26A of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922.

Analysis: Section 26A required a firm to be constituted under an instrument of partnership specifying the individual shares of the partners. The deed, read as a whole and in the light of the surrounding circumstances, showed equal capital participation and equal division of profits among the three partners. The applications for registration and the accounts consistently reflected equal sharing. The instrument was therefore capable of a reasonable construction that disclosed the partners' individual profit shares with sufficient certainty for the statutory requirement.

Conclusion: The firm was entitled to registration for the assessment year in question, and the refusal of renewal was not justified.

Ratio Decidendi: A partnership deed satisfies the requirement of specifying individual shares under section 26A if, on a reasonable construction of the instrument as a whole, it clearly discloses the partners' respective shares in profits and losses.

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