Roshan Lal Ghat And Sons vs Punjab Housing Development Board

S.P. Goyal, J.—An award between the parties made by J. L. Mahajan was filed in the Court on March 12, 1983. The Respondent-Board filed its objections to the award on May 27, 1983, which were controverted on merits by the Petitioner and also stated to be barred by time. The objections were dismissed as barred by time as well as on merits by the trial Court On appeal, the learned Addititional District Judge reversed the findings of the trial Court and set aside the award. Aggrieved thereby, the contractors have come in this Revision.

The learned Counsel for the Petitioner has assailed the finding of the learned Additional District Judge on the point of limitation on the ground that the limitation for filing the objections would start from the date on which the arbitrator served the parties with the notices of the filing of the award. Reliance for this contention was placed on Central Warehousing Corporation Vs. B.M. Pal Chowdhury, . The contention, however, does not appear to be sound. The time for filing the objections start running under Article 119(b) of the Limitation Act from the date of the service of the notice of the filing of the award. The arbitrator is required to give notice in writing to the parties of the making and signing of the award u/s 14(1) of the Arbitration Act and no notice is to be served by him regarding the filing of the award. It is only Court who is required to serve notice on the parties of the filing of the award after the same has been done in accordance with the provisions of Sub-section (2) of Section 14. Obviously, the notice envisaged under Article 119(b) of the Limitation Act would be the one issued by the Court u/s 14(2) of the Arbitration Act. As no notice of the filing of the award is envisaged by the arbitrator, nor he being under any obligation to do so, any notice issued by him would not cause the limitation to run for filing of the objections. Same view was taken by the Calcutta High Court in the later two Division Bench decisions in State of West Bengal Vs. A. Mondal, and Sree Sree Ma Engineering and Co. Vs. State of West Bengal and Another, . The appellate Court, therefore, rightly overruled the objection regarding limitation and its finding is accordingly affirmed.

The finding of the learned Additional District Judge on the second point that the appointment of Mr. J. L. Mahajan as arbitrator was illegal having been made without notice to the Respondent, however, has to be reversed for the reasons next following. The order of appointment of J. L. Mahajan as arbitrator was passed u/s 8 of the Arbitration Act. It was an independent order and could be challenged either by moving an application to that very Court or through appeal. No attempt having been made to get that order set set aside, it would not be open to the Respondent to challenge the same by way of objections to the award u/s 17 of the said Act. Again, the Respondent never objected to the authority of the arbitrator and participated in the proceedings before him. Even if it may be accepted for sake of argument that some irregularity had been committed in his appointment, the Respondent would be estopped from challenging the same after having submitted to his jurisdiction and taken a chance of the award being made in its favour. Even on merits the finding of the learned Additional District Judge that the appointment had been made without notice to the Respondent cannot be sustained. Admittedly Mr. Raj Kumar Advocate, put in appearance on behalf of the Respondent and took serveral dates for filing reply. Then on September 23, 1985 he reported no instructions and the Court ordered ex parte proceedings to be taken against the Respondent. Obviously, the Respondent had put in appearance through its advocate and if later on the counsel reported no instructions, it cannot be said that the proceedings were taken without serving any notice or affording any opportunity of being heard. The order of appointment of the arbitrator, therefore, could not be termed as illegal, nor the award set aside on the ground urged and the finding of the Appellate Court in this regard is accordingly reversed.

For the reasons recorded above, this Revision is allowed, the judgment and order of the Appellate Court set aside and that of the trial Court restored. No costs.