NADIRSHAW H CONTRACTOR Vs. GAJRAJ SHEOKARANDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from a decision of Mr. Justice Somjee given in chambers making absolute a notice under Order XXI, Rule 22, of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, which empowers the Court to authorise execution of a decree more than two years after the date of the decree. In this case there was) no decree; there was only an award made on July 27, 1929, and filed in this Court on August 16, 1929, under the Indian Arbitration Act, 1899. The present application was made on January 6, 1941, and a notice was issued under Order XXI, Rule 22, of the Civil Procedure Code.

(2.) THE question at issue is, whether the award which has been filed in this Court can be enforced within twelve years of the date of the award or whether the period of limitation is three years; i.e. whether the case falls under art. 183, or art. 181, of the Indian Limitation Act, 1908. Article 183 limits the time for enforcement of a judgment, decree or order of any Court established by Royal Charter in the exercise of its ordinary original civil jurisdiction to twelve years from the date when a present right to enforce the judgment, decree or order accrues to some person capable of releasing the right. Under Section 15 of the Indian Arbitration Act of 1899, which is the section applicable to this case, it is provided that an award on a submission, on being filed in Court, shall be enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court. THE argument for the appellant is that art. 183 taken by itself does not apply to an award, since it only embraces a judgment, decree or order of a Chartered High Court; and Section 15 does not make an award a decree of the Court, it only provides that it is to be enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court, which expression refers to the manner of execution, and does not relate to limitation. That Section 15 has not the effect of making the award a decree of the Court has been recognised by the Privy Council in Sassoon & Co. v. Ramdutt Ramkissen Das (1922) I.L.R. 50 Cal. 1, P.C., and by this Court in Tribhuwandas Kallindas Gajjar v. Jivanchand (1910) I.L.R. 35 Bom. 196, s.c. 12 Bom. L.R. 860, but neither of those cases was dealing with the question of limitation. We have also been referred to cases on the English Arbitration Act, including De La Bere v. Pearson, Limited [1907] 1 K.B. 483, but the English Act provides for enforcing an award in the same manner as a decree. So also does Section 59(1)(a) of the Bombay Co-operative Societies Act of 1925 which was the statute with which this Court was dealing in Raghavendra v. Industrial Bank, Guledgud (1935) 38 Bom. I.R. 927. THE expression "in the same manner as" would seem to refer to the method of execution and would not, I think, cover the time within which execution must be enforced. But Section 15 speaks of the award being enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court, and it seems to me much easier to read that expression as including both the manner of execution and the time within which execution must take place. It may be said with force that if a decree of the Court is enforceable within twelve years, but an award is only enforceable within three years, then after the expiration of three years, the award is not enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court.

(3.) THE narrow point for consideration is whether the words "enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court" in Section 15 of the Indian Arbitration Act (IX of 1899) are equivalent to enforceable in the manner of a decree of the Court. Our attention has been drawn to several cases in which the words "enforceable in the same manner as" have been construed, and it has been pointed out that by reason of the use of those words an award does not obtain the character of a decree in all respects. We are not oppressed by those decisions because the words actually used here are not "enforceable in the same manner as" a decree.