SINGARAN COAL SYNDICATE LTD Vs. BALMAKUND MARWARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs instituted the suit to recover minimum royalty and rent due under three leases, dated 1912, 1919 and 1914 in respect of three pieces of coal lands. The defendants, amongst other pleas, took the plea that according to the terms of the contract between the parties all disputes and differences between them were to be referred to arbitration and they prayed for an order under Section 18, Schedule 11, Civil P.C., staying the suit and directing the parties to refer the claim to arbitration. The Subordinate Judge has made that order and the plaintiff's have preferred this appeal.

(2.) The first contention urged in the appeal is that a part of the claim is based upon the lease of 1914, but that lease contains no stipulation as to arbitration and consequently the order should not have been made. To this the respondents answer is that the lease of 1914 properly construed does contain a stipulation as to arbitration, referring as it does to the earlier lease of 1912 by which it was intended that the parties were to be governed, and further that, in any case, the claim arising under that lease is but an insignificant one when compared to the total claim in the suit, and there could be no objection to that part of the claim being separated from the rest and retained in Court for adjudication. The lease of 1914 has not been produced before us and we do not know its terms: it also appears that in the objection which the plaintiffs filed in answer to the defendants application for stay the Court below was not invited to construe the lease and hold that the claim arising under it could not be referred to arbitration. We are therefore not inclined to entertain this objection.

(3.) On the footing that the lease of 1914 bears the interpretation that the plaintiffs seek to put on it, a question would arise as to whether the claim may be split up or not. The learned Advocate-General appearing on behalf of the appellants had relied on the case of Turnook v. Sartoris [1890] 43 Ch.D. 150, in which Cotton, L.J., observed thus: Then it was contended that at all events the question arising under the lease was the principal matter in dispute and that it ought to be referred leaving the action to proceed only as to matters not arising under the lease. I think that such a course would not be right. It could not be right to cut up this litigation into two actions one to be tried before the arbitrator, and the other to be tried elsewhere.