HANS RAJ L BISHAN DAS Vs. SURJIT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON 3-8-1949 Sohan Singh and Gopi Nath, owners of two firms and who were also the partners of the Commercial Syndicate, instituted a suit for dissolution of partnership and rendition of accounts against the remaining 9 other partners of that Syndicate. A preliminary decree fixing the shares of the various partners and appointing one Nathu Mal as a Local Commissioner for going into the accounts and for reporting the liability of each of the partners was passed on 29-4-1950. Later on a final decree in accordance with the report of the Local Commissioner was passed on 29-6-1950. This decree was ex parte against Parma Lal and others defendants 2 to 9. It was later on set aside in appeal filed by Hans Raj, defendant no. 3, by this Court on 24-12-1953 and the case was remanded to the trial Court to proceed from the stage at which the ex parte proceedings had been taken. On 31-5-1960 the legal representatives of the plaintiffs, plaintiffs having died in the meantime, and defendants 1 to 4 agreed to refer the whole dispute to the sole arbitration of Shri Atma Ram Aggarwal, Advocate of Amritsar. He filed his award on 29-8-1960, according to which, defendant No. 3 was to pay a sum of Rs. 2,500/- to Sohan Singh, plaintiff, Rs. 2,000/- to Gopi Nath, plaintiff, Rs. 2,500/- to defendant No. 4 and Rs. 2,000/- to defendant No. 2, and another sum of Rs. 2,000/- to defendant No. 1. The parties were left to bear their own costs. The suit against defendants 5 to 9 was dismissed. Only defendant No. 3 filed objections to the award, mainly, on the grounds (1) that the agreement of reference was void ab initio, because defendants 5 to 9 had not signed that reference and had not agreed to refer their dispute to the arbitrator and (2) defendant No. 1, Ajudhya Nath, was also not a party to this reference, since the agreement of reference was signed by Shri Prem nath Behal, Advocate, on his behalf. The said Advocate had no proper authority to refer the dispute to arbitration, because the power of attorney given in his favour was signed by one Chum Lal, mukhtar-i-am of Ajudhya Nath who he had no power to refer any matter in a pending suit to arbitration. It may be mentioned that certain grounds of misconduct were also alleged against arbitrator, but the same were not pressed in this Court. On replies having been filed by the plaintiffs and defendants 1 and 4 to the objections raised by Hans Raj, defendant No. 3, the following issues were framed:-

(2.) IT was held by the trial Judge that defendant No. 3 was not competent to challenge the reference made by the Court to the Arbitrator. It was further found that the award was not liable to be set aside on any of the grounds alleged by defendant No. 3. In view of these findings, the objections filed by defendant No. 3 were dismissed and a final decree in accordance with the terms of the award was passed. The present appeal has been filed by Hans Raj defendant No. 3 against the order of the Court below refusing to set aside the award.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the appellant, in the first instance, submitted that the agreement of reference in the present case was void, because in a pending suit relating to the dissolution of partnership and rendition of accounts, unless the agreement of reference was signed by all the parties to the suit, the Court had no jurisdiction to entertain such an agreement and refer the dispute to arbitration. In a partnership suit, all the partners are necessary parties and, consequently, the learned counsel contended that all of them should have agreed to refer the dispute to arbitration.