KIMTI LAL VOHRA Vs. HARYANA STATE AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE civil revision is against the order passed by the civil court exercising the appellate jurisdiction against the order passed by the court of first instance in arbitration proceedings. The claims and counter claims were made by the petitioner, who was a contractor, and the State which had entrusted the contract before the Arbitrator for three heads of claims:(i) interest of security amount paid by the contractor; (ii) loss suffered for escalation of costs beyond the contract period; (iii) interest for delayed payments.

(2.) THE claim of the petitioner was that the work, which was allotted on 07.11.1986 and which was required to be completed within a period of 6 months, could not, however, be completed within the stipulated time on account of the fact that for a portion of a work which was already completed and for which an amount of Rs. 25,000/ - and odd was required to be paid had not been paid on the alleged failure to make adequate budgetary allocations and the period for completion of the work had been periodically extended by the respondents on the petitioner's request and the work was ultimately completed on 13.02.1991. The delay in completion of the work was, therefore, on account of the respondent's failure to honour its financial commitments and the resultant increase in costs of inputs and labour that had to be borne by the State. The third head of claim was the interest for delayed payments that had ultimately resulted by the delay in completion of the work in the payment that were ultimately made.

(3.) THE counsel would preface a submission with a plea that it is a settled law that the award of the Arbitrator need not to be reasoned, unless the terms of the reference themselves required a reasoned judgment to be given. The ground taken by the appellate Court that there were not adequate reasons for admission of the claims was, therefore, unjustified. The position of law is now too well established to be restated again and I affirm the incontrovertible position that the award cannot be assailed because it is not reasoned. I will not, therefore, find any fallibility about the award for its failure to state its reasons.