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13. Thus, the arbitration proceeding consists of two stages. One such stage consists of merely ministerial acts while the second stage consists of effective adjudicative acts in furtherance of the work of arbitration, namely of proceedings to decide controversies in between the parties, whether arising out of the main dispute or procedural aspects in the disposal thereof. The arbitrator cannot be said to have entered on the reference unless the second stage can be said to have been reached someway of the other. Looked at from this point of view it is impossible to hold that the arbitrator had entered on reference in 17-11-1971 when nothing had happened on that date beyond the arbitrator issuing notices to the parties to file their statement of claims. The resume' of events in this case indicates that no effective step was taken by the arbitrator, till the hearing of the dispute commenced on 21-2-1972. Each one of the earlier stages covered merely some or the other of the ministerial acts such as issuing of notices, acceptance of statement of claims and adjourning the case to suit the convenience of the parties. 21st February 1972 must beheld, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, to be the date on which the arbitrator had entered on reference. The award dated 15-5-1972 was within four months prescribed under Clause 3 of Schedule I of the Arbitration Act. In this view of the matter, the finding recorded by the learned Judge on this point is liable to be set aside.
12. The Full Bench of the Calcutta High Court has had occasion to consider what "entering on reference' by the arbitrator means in the case of Ramanath Agarwalla v. Goneka & Co. . After considering Section 3 and the several clauses of the Schedule I and Section 11 of the Act and different phrases employed by the legislation with regard to the stages before the arbitration, the learned Chief Justice speaking for the Court observed as follows :
Entering on reference, therefore, refers to the first step that the Arbitrator takes in the reference, that is to say, when he begins to deal with the reference. The Arbitrator, under the Act, may have to do various ministerial acts but the doing of any of the ministerial acts is not entering on the reference. It is only when he first applies his mind to the dispute referred to him that he enters on the reference. When, however, in a particular case, he first applied his mind to the dispute would depend in the facts and circumstances of that case.
He then recorded his conclusion in para 35 of the judgment as follows:
We therefore, answer the questions referred to us as follows :
(1) An Arbitrator does not enter on the reference as soon as he assumes the office of an Arbitrator. An Arbitrator does not necessarily enter on the reference when he actually commences the decision of the matter in the presence of both parties or exparte. An Arbitrator enters on a reference when he first applies his mind to the dispute or controversy before him depending on the facts and circumstances of each case.

23. The judgment of the Division Bench of this Court in M/ s.Jolly Steel Industries Pvt. Ltd. and the judgment of the Full Bench of the Calcutta High Court in Ramanath Aganualla v. Goenka & Co. , have not been overruled.

24. A learned Single Judge of this Court in Dr. Babubhai Vanmalidas Mehta v. Prabhod Pranshankar Joshi also extracted the aforesaid observations in Iossifoglu's case in paragraph 4. However, in paragraph 6, the learned Judge observed :

(6)...It is perhaps possible to argue that the decision in 'Iossifoglu v. Coumantaros', (A) has gone a bit too far in holding that the moment the arbitrator accepts an appointment he enters upon a reference. Perhaps the arbitrator must do some act which is referable to his position as an arbitrator and to nothing else before it can be said that he entered upon the reference; and indeed in any event, so far as Cockburn, C.J. was concerned 'Baker v. Stephens', (B) he pointed out that the arbitrator must take upon himself and exercise the functions of an arbitrator.