PYARCHAND Vs. DUNGAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a revision by Pyarchand and others and has arisen in the following circumstances:

(2.) Dungarsingh, opposite party, filed a suit against Pyarchand and others in October 1944 praying that a certain arbitration award dated 20-4-1944, may bo ordered to be filed and a decree passed in accordance with it. The parties are descended from a common ancestor, Dungarsingh belonging to one branch and the applicants Pyarchand and others belonging to another. There were disputes between the parties about partition of their ancestral property and litigation was going on. In one such litigation, there was a revision to the High Court of the former State of Mewar. In the course of the proceedings in the High Court, parties appointed one Tejsingh Kothari as arbitrator to arbitrate ail disputes between them which were on that date pending in courts. It was also provided that those disputes between the parties which were not then pending in Courts would also be decided by this arbitrator. The arbitrator gave an award on 20-41944 and filed it in the High Court at Udaipur on the same day. Thereafter Dungarsingh applied to the High Court at Udaipur for passing a decree in terms of the award on 1-7-1944. That application was disposed of by the High Court in September 1946 and the parties were directed to approach directly the Courts where litigation was pending. In the meantime, the present suit was filed by Dungarsingh in the Court of the District Judge at Udaipur with a certified copy of the award on a court-fee stamp of Rs. 5/-. There was a report by the office that the court-fee was insufficient and the application was returned to Dungarsingh on 31-10-1944. He presented it again on 28-11-1944 and contended that the court-fee paid was sufficient. This question was agitated before the District Judge and on 21-21945, he ordered that the case be registered subject to arguments being heard later on the question whether the court-fee paid was deficient. When the present applicants appeared before the District Judge, they opposed the application on the grounds of limitation and insufficiency of court-fee among other grounds. The District Judge decided that the court-fee paid was sufficient and that the application was not barred by limitation, and ordered the proceedings to go on. Thereupon a revision was filed in the High Court of the former State of Mewar on 10-2-1948 against this order. That revision came to this Court on its establishment and was put up for hearing before a learned single Judge on 121- 1951. He then made a reference to a Division Bench with the following order:

(3.) The matter then came up for hearing before a Division Bench. As by that time the learned Judge, who had made the reference, was no longer on the Bench of this Court, it was ordered by the Chief Justice on 19-3-1552 that the whole case will be decided by the Bench before which the reference was pending. The whole case is, therefore, now before this Bench for decision.