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11. The next contention, which has been more vehemently urged by learned counsel for the appellants is, that the respondents' application for obtaining the final decree was covered by Article 181, Indian Limitation Act, that under the said Article, the prescribed period of three years commenced from the date when the right to apply accrued, that the right to apply for the final decree accrued on 10th December, 1956 immediately after the preliminary decree was passed, that the period of limitation thus expired on 10th December, 1959 and since the present application was filed on 4th September, 1960, it ought to have been dismissed) by the trial Court as being time-barred. It is further contended that the trial Court was wrong in holding that since the defendants had filed an appeal against the order of that Court refusing to set aside the award, the limitation would run from the date of the appellate Court's judgment and the question of limitation did not arise under the circumstances. It has been strenuously argued that although this Court has since decided the appeals on 3rd July, 1961, the period of limitation cannot commence from that date, because those appeals were not filed against the preliminary decree but they were filed under Section 39 of the Arbitration Act against an order refusing to set aside the award. According to learned counsel, the proceeding out of which the said application arose was a separate and collateral proceeding and no fresh right to file an application for final decree could ascrue from the decision of the appellate Court.

This position would be still more clear by taking a converse case. If the trial Court were to allow the application for setting aside the award and if on appeal under Section 39(1)(vi) of the Arbitration Act its decision were to be set aside, a preliminary decree could follow only thereafter.

18. Learned counsel for the appellants has urged war in interpreting Article 181, the Court should only adopt the strict grammatical construction and it should not be construed in order to enlarge the time on equitable grounds. He has placed his main reliance on Kirpal Shah Sant Singh v. Shri Harkishan, AIR 1957 Punj 273. It may be observed that the learned Judges in that case were considering the provisions of Article 182 of the Indian Limitation Act and not Article 181. In Article 181, the only words which need to be interpreted are 'when the right to apply accrues'. It is doubtful if there can be two interpretations of these words, whether they are construed strictly in grammatical sense, or in a liberal sense. The question of giving them strict grammatical meaning or a liberal construction does not arise so far as this Article is concerned. As regards the point of time when the right to apply under this Article would accrue, it cannot be decided by any text or grammar and it will have to be determined according to the facts and circumstances of each case. What learned counsel for the appellants means to urge in this connection is, that the appeal before this Court arose in a collateral proceeding and so the right to apply for the final decree could not accrue therefrom.

It was urged before their lordships that the words 'where there has been an appeal were comprehensive enough to include the appeal from the order dismissing the application under Order 9, Rule 9, Civil Procedure Code, made in connection with the proceedings under Section 36, Money-lenders Act. This argument was repelled with the observations that it was highly far-fetched one and that however broadly it may be construed, it cannot be held to cover an appeal from an order which is passed in a collateral proceeding or which has no direct or immediate connection with the decree under execution. It is clear from the context in which the said observations were made that the judgment-debtor's application for setting aside the ex parte preliminary decree was dismissed by the trial Court itself and there was no appeal against the final decree either which was passed later on. The judgment-debtor sought to take advantage of the Bengal Money-lenders Act and filed an application under Section 36 thereof. It was thus a completely separate and collateral proceeding.

The application under Order 9, Rule 9 was also made in this collateral proceeding and the appeal also arose out of that order and thus the observations of their lordships were made in a very different state of circumstances. It has already teen pointed out above that in the present case the appeal before this Court was not in a collateral proceeding, out it was against an order of the trial Court which had refused to set aside the award and the validity of the award itself was thus challenged. It was by this very decision of the trial Court that it adopted the award as its judgment and passed a preliminary decree. It is thus the very basis of the trial Court's judgment and decree. If that order of the trial Court were set aside, its judgment and decree would have automatically toppled down. Thus it was a basic and not a collateral proceeding and it would be incorrect to say that it had no direct or immediate connection with the preliminary decree.