Gudapati Madhav Reddy vs Sripuram Raja Ram

Qamar Hasan, J.—Gudipati Madhava Reddy judgment-debtor is the appellant in this second appeal in execution. It would appear that the matter in dispute between him and the respondent as to the money recoverable from the former was referred to certain arbitrators. The arbitrators gave an award for Rs. 4,625/-against the appellant. On 4th July, 1952 the respondent filed a suit for the award being made a rule of the Court and valued the suit at Rs. 4,625/- and paid a fixed court-fee of Rs. 100/-.

The appellant put in appearance on 17th July, 1952 and confessed judgment. The Court however, after recording the statement of an arbitrator on 17th July, 1952, passed a decree in terms of the award on 24th July, 1952. As the money was not paid according to the installments fixed in the decree, the respondent filed E. P. on 81-7-1953 and obtained attachment of the appellant''s property. The appellant asked for one month''s time on 15-12-1952 to pay the amount realizable under the decree.

The Court granted the time asked for and granted further adjournments to enable the appellant to liquidate the decree. Despite that the appellant failed to pay any amount. The Court however, closed the file on 22-4-1954 recording non-satisfaction of the decree. The respondent applied again for execution on 5th July, 1954. This time the appellant resisted the E. P. on two grounds. Firstly, the court-fee paid on the plaint was insufficient and secondly that the Court which passed the decree had no jurisdiction to do so unless and until one month''s time elapsed as required by S. 17 of the Arbitration Act read with Art. 158 of the Limitation Act.

The executing Court and on appeal the Dist. Judge by his judgment and order dated 3rd January, 1955 overruled these objections on the ground that an Executing Court cannot deal with these objections by going behind the decree.

The learned counsel for the appellant did not press the plea of non-excitability of the decree on the ground of the alleged insufficiency of the court-fees paid on the plaint. He however, very strenuously contended that whether the parties applied for time or not it was the duty of the Trial Court to allow 30 days'' time to elapse between the filing of the award and the passing of the decree on the basis of the award and if the Court fails to do so the decree would be deemed to be void and incapable of execution and therefore the Executing Court was bound to give effect to the plea raised by the appellant.

It is quite true that where a decree is passed by a Court which has no jurisdiction to pass it then by reason of inherent defect of jurisdiction in the Court passing it the Executing Court can ignore the same and that is what incidentally has been held in B. Krishna Gopal Vs. Mt. Lakshmi Bai cited by the learned counsel for the appellant. But it is also well-settled that the Executing Court cannot however refuse to execute a decree because it is against law or contravenes the provisions of any law.

It is not controverter that the Court making the award a rule of the Court had jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the suit in every respect. It is thus apparent that there was no inherent absence of jurisdiction to entertain the suit. Where it erred was that it failed to wait till the time for making an application to set aside the award had expired. To this failure on the part of the Court to stay its hand till the expiry of the statutory period of limitation, the appellant himself was a contributory factor.Be that as it may the omission of the Court on that score was at the most a contravention of the prescribed procedure. No. direct authority bearing on the question under discussion has been cited on behalf of the appellant. The cases of Srikishin Rochumull v. Relumal Pariomal 34 lnd Cas 845: (AIR 1916 Sind 79) (B) Kamta Pershad v. Uman Prasad, 76 lnd Cas 33: (AIR 1924 Oudh 344) (C) and Pendyala Subba Rao Vs. Lingamallu Ramalingayya, cited on behalf of the appellant were cases of revisions of orders passed by the Original Court and can be of no avail to the appellant. No other argument was advanced before me.

In the result the appeal fails and is hereby dismissed with costs.