1991 (5) TMI 52

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....ication by the Revenue, the following question has been referred by the Tribunal to this court under section 256(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, for short "the Act". "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was justified in holding that the lower authorities were wrong in cancelling the registration of the assessee-firm under section 186 of the Income-tax Act, 1....

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....ee. It may be convenient at this stage to reproduce section 186(1) of the Act, which runs as follows : "(1) If, where a firm has been registered, or its registration has effect under sub-section (7) of section 184 for an assessment year, the Income-tax Officer is of opinion that there was during the previous year no genuine firm in existence as registered, he may, after giving the firm reaso....

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....means natural, native, not spurious, real, pure, sincere. According to Black's Law Dictionary (5th Edition),- the term "genuine" means that it is not false, forged, fictitious, simulated, spurious or counterfeit. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the expression "no genuine firm in existence as registered" in section 186 of the Act means that a firm registered under section 184 of the Act i....

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....cation for registration, though required to be signed by all the partners (not being minors), was signed only by three partners and that the partnership is bad in law inasmuch as the artificial juridical person cannot be made liable to share the loss of the firm. In this connection, learned counsel has placed reliance in Dulichand Laxminarayan v. CIT [1956] 29 ITR 535 (SC). In Dulichand Laxmina....