Madras High Court
Pagammal (Died) And Ors. vs Kasi Goundan And Ors. on 25 April, 1950
Equivalent citations: AIR1951MAD387, (1950)2MLJ632, AIR 1951 MADRAS 387
ORDER Raghava Rao, J.
1. This revision petition has been pre-ferred by defendant in O. S. No. 37 of 1943 on the file of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Coimbatore. The order against which the revision petition has been preferred is that of the learned District Judge of Coimbatore affirming the order of the Subordinate Judge in I. A. No. 511 of 1944 in the orginial suit I. A. No. 511 was filed by the plaintiff in the suit for recording a certain award decision under Order 23, Rule 3, Civil P. C.
2. The application having been ordered by the Courts below, learned counsel of defendants-petitioners 4 urges before me that the provisions of Section 47, Arbitration Act, have not been sufficiently borne in mind and correctly given effect to by the Courts below. Defendant 4 was not a party to the reference to arbi-tration which resulted in the award on the basis of which the Court was invited to make a decree in terms thereof. There was, therefore, no arbitration award with reference to defendant 4 as the expression "award" which means an arbitration award, has to be understood in relation to the definition of the term "arbitration agreement" in Section 2(a) of the Act. And so says Mr. Ramachandra Iyer in his able and forceful argument, it cannot be held that there was any arbitration against defendant 4 in conformity with the provisions of the statute. If there waa none such, says learned counsel next, it follows that the award decision cannot be accepted or taken into consideration so far as defendant 4 is concerned as a compromise or adjustment of a suit by the Court before which the suit waa pending. In the course of the argument before me the case in Arumuga Mudaliar v. Balasu-bramania Mudaliar, 1945-1 M.L.J. 463 : (A.I.R. (32) 1945 Mad 294) has been brought to my notice, which the learned advocate for the petitioner has distinguished as a case in which there was a valid arbitration reference from the very inception which there is not in the present caae so far as defendant 4 is concerned. I must say, I am impressed with tha argument of learned counsel so far. But then I have felt the diffi culty and I have put it to learned counsel that possibly the present case might well be consi dered as one ia which, after the award was made by the arbitrators which may noti per se be binding on defendant 4, the Courts below have spelt out from the conduct of the parties an agreement on the part of defendant 4 that she should abide by what the arbitrator had actually declared as the rights and obligations of the parties in respect of the suit property. The answer which Mr. Ramachandra Iyer has attempted is that the only case of the plaintiff in the Courts below was that defendant 4 was in fact and in truth a patty to the reference to arbitration and knew everything about it and was consequently bound by the proceedings before the arbitrators and their award. It, how ever, seems to ma that that is nob the exact fact of the situation. It does appear that before the trial Court tha point was made that the award decision of the arbitrators might well be regard-
ed as representing a certain compromise to which, on account of the assent given by defen-
dant 4 later, effect might be given under Order 23, Rule 3, Civil P. C. That, is in my opinion fairly clear from a reading of the last paragraph of the judgment in two portions of which the learned Subordinate Judge has dealt with the position that because all the parties have signed the award decision including defendant 4 the deci sion must be regarded as in effect a compromise entered into between the parties based on the award. If this view of the situation which was suggested by me in the course of the arguments accepted as properly borne out by the way, in which the case was presented to the Courts below for decision, it is amply clear on the whole that there is no need for me to disturb the decision of the Courts below with reference to the application under Order 23, Rule 3, Civil P. C., that was made by the plaintiff notwithstanding that defendant 4 was not a patty to the original reference to arbitration. Defendant 4 must be treated as bound for the reasons given in the foregoing, by the award rendered by the arbitra tor and the decree that might well be passed on the basis of such a compromise under Order 23, Rule 3 must be regarded as binding on defendant 4 as well as the other parties to the suit. This civil revision petition accordingly fails and is dis missed but in the circumstances without costs.