CO OPERATIVE BANKING UNION LTD Vs. MADHAVA PANICKER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Second Appeal is by the plaintiff, a Cooperative Society, that has sued for recovery of money due under a chitty bond evidenced by Ext. A. The defendants are not members of the plaintiff Society but are members of another society which itself is a member of the plaintiff Society. The suit was originally instituted before the Registrar of Cooperative Societies; but, finding that the Registrar has no jurisdiction to try a suit of this kind, the plaint was returned for presentation in a Civil Court; and accordingly it was represented in the Munsiff's Court of Kottayam. The defendants pleaded bar of limitation. It is conceded, that unless the period of pendency of the suit before the Registrar and the arbitrator appointed by him to try it is excluded from computation, the suit would be beyond time. The Munsiff decreed the suit, giving the benefit of S.14 of the Limitation Act to the plaintiff. The District Judge, however, held an arbitrator under Cooperative Societies Act not a 'court' within the meaning of S.14 of the Limitation Act and therefore the plaintiff not entitled to exclusion of the period of pendency of the suit before such arbitrator in calculating limitation for the suit and dismissed the same as beyond time. Hence this Second Appeal.

(2.) The District Judge has obviously relied on Purushottamdas Hassaram Sabnani v. Impex (India) Ltd. (AIR 1954 Bom. 309; where "in view of S.37(5) Arbitration Act" (of 1940), Chagla, C.J. (with the concurrence of Dixit, J.) held the plaintiff "not entitled to exclude any time taken up in arbitration proceedings". Incidentally an observation was also made by the learned Judge that since S.14 of the Limitation Act referred to a 'court of first instance' and "a court of appeal" the Legislature must have meant by the word "court" only the "judicial courts, Courts established by the Law of the land, and not courts in the wider sense of domestic forums or tribunals."

(3.) The above observations cannot apply to arbiters under the Cooperative Societies Act. Clauses (2) and (5) of S.60 and S.61 of the Cooperative Societies Act, 1952, read as follow: