JAMIA MILLIA ASLAMIA Vs. SRI PRITHI RAJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Letters Patent Appeal has arisen in the following circumstances. The respondent Prithi Raj claims to be a displaced per. son from Lahore now residing at Delhi where he carries on the business of a building contractor. In 1949 he entered into a contract with the negistered society known as the Jamia Millia Islamia for the construction of a Teachers' Training Institute Hostel and according to his allegations completed the building in July 1951. He claimed that allowing for payments made by the Society and the material supplied by it a sum of Rs. 1,97,000/- was still due to him and he therefore filed a petition before a Tribunal constituted under Act LXX of 1951 under Section 13 of that Act which deals with the claims by displaced creditors against persons who are not displaced debtors. The claim was resisted by the Society which denied that the subject-matter of the claim was a debt within the meaning of the Act, and also applied for the stay of proceedings before the Tribunal under Section 34, Arbitration Act. It was in fact alleged by the Society not only that there was an arbitration clause in the contract between the parties but that there had actually already been a reference Co arbitration under it.

(2.) ON these pleadings the Tribunal framed preliminary issues.

(3.) THE preliminary objection has been raised on behalf of the respondent that no appeal lay to this Court at all against the order of the Tribunal dismissing the Society's application under Section 34, Arbitration Act, and therefore the present appeal did not lie, since if no appeal lay to the learned Single Judge, his order, must be deemed to have been passed in exercise of the revisional powers of the Court, and no Letters Patent Appeal lies against such an order.