Q.Where the partnership deed is silent on the rate of interest payable to a deceased partner's executor on the amount remaining unpaid, the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 entitles the executor to interest at:

The law supplies a default wherever the partnership deed does not fix its own rate, so that a deceased partner's estate is never left without any entitlement to compensation for a delayed payment.

Why option (b) is correct. Section 37 of the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 provides that where a partner has died (or retired) and the amount due to them remains unpaid, and the partnership deed does not fix a specific rate of interest, the outgoing partner — or, on death, their executor — is entitled to choose between: (i) interest @6% per annum on the amount remaining unpaid from the date of death until payment, or (ii) a share of the firm's subsequent profits attributable to the use of that unpaid amount, whichever the executor finds more beneficial.

Why the other options are wrong.

• (a) 5% p.a. — this is not the rate fixed anywhere in the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 for this specific situation; it is sometimes confused with other, unrelated statutory or commercial interest rates.
• (c) 9% p.a. and (d) 12% p.a. — these might appear as the AGREED rate in a specific partnership deed or in an examination question that states a deed provision, but neither is the STATUTORY default rate that applies only when the deed is silent, which is what this question asks about.

Students sometimes confuse this statutory 6% default (for an outgoing/deceased partner's unsettled dues) with other interest rates used elsewhere in partnership accounting — such as interest on a partner's loan advanced to a running firm, or an interest-on-capital/drawings rate that the deed itself might separately specify. The 6% figure under Section 37 applies specifically to the SETTLEMENT balance of a retired or deceased partner when the deed is silent.