MOHANLAL ARORA Vs. KAILASH FINANCIERS CALCUTTA PVT LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application under Sections 30, 33 and 41 of the Arbitration Act. 1940 (hereinafter referred to as the said Act) praying that the award made on is March, 1969 in the arbitration proceedings between Kailash Financiers (Calcutta) Private Ltd. and Ser-am-pore Mill Stores be set aside; (b) that the decree passed in the Award Case No. 74 of 1974 be set aside; (c) that all proceedings including execution proceedings under the said Award dated 1st March, 1969 and/or the decree dated 17th August, 1970, including all steps in aid of execution, be stayed permanently.

(2.) THE facts of this case, so far as relevant for the purpose of this application are as follows:

(3.) MR. S. Tibrewal, learned counsel appearing in support of this application, submitted before me that the judgment upon award was a nullity inasmuch as it was filed on 8th June, 1970 when the City Civil Court at Calcutta and not this Court had jurisdiction to entertain any such award for passing judgment upon the same. He pointed out that with effect from 14th November, 1969 the pecuniary jurisdiction of this Court was in respect of amount exceeding Rs. 50,000 whereas the award in question was in respect of a sum less than that amount and accordingly after 14th November, 1969 no such award could be filed in this Court and no such judgment upon the award could be passed by this Court. According to him in view of the same the judgment passed upon the said award on the 17th August, 1970 was a nullity. He made it clear that though this application was intituled to be under Sections 30 and 33 of the said Act, this was in effect an application under the inherent jurisdiction of this Court under Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure read with Section 41 of the said Act According to him there was no time limit for such, an application. The judgment upon the award being a nullity it could be challenged at any stage in any proceeding. In this connection he relied on the decisions of Rajalakshmee Dassee v. Katyayani Dassee reported in (1911) ILR 38 Cal 639 at p. 667. Kiran Singh v. Cha-man Paswan ; and Soorajmull Nagarmull v. Golden Fibre and Products , Official Trustee West Bengal v. Sachindra Nath Chatterjee , and Ganeshmal v. Kesoram Cotton Mills . It was also sought to be contended that there was no arbitration agreement between the parties and accordingly the award was a nullity and the same ought to be set aside. In this connection it was argued that originally the arbitration agreement was between the applicant and the respondent No. 2 and there was no arbitration agreement between the applicant and the respondent No. 1 though an award was sought to be passed in favour of the respondent No. 1 in an arbitration proceeding between the applicant and the respondent No. 1.