G CHOKKAPPA CHETTY Vs. MSANTHUBAVA ROWTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute between the petitioner and the respondent was referred to arbitration. The award was not made on the date prescribed, but extensions were asked for from time to time. The award was actually written on 26 August, 1936; but the order of Court allowing the last extension of time was not passed until 27 August, 1936, although the application had been filed in Court some days before the award was made. The principal question argued in this Court and in the Court below was whether the Court became functus officio-in this matter on the day the award was made and was income petent to pass the order on 27th August, 1936, extending the time.

(2.) It seems to me that the order passed by a Court on an application must refer back to the date on which the application is put in; for it is the state of affairs on that date that the Court has to consider in making an order. If on the date of the application the Court had jurisdiction to extend the time, I cannot see how it lost jurisdiction because in the interval between the filing of the petition and the passing of orders the award is actually made. There is nothing in Schedule II of the Civil P. C. which says so, and no decision has been pointed out to me in which a Court has gone so far as to say that a Court loses jurisdiction to extend the time when once the award has been made. Raja Har Narain Singh v. Chaudrain Bhagwant Kuar (1891) 18 I.A. 55 : I.L.R. 13 All. 300 (P.C.) is a Privy Council decision upon which much reliance has been placed by the earned Counsel for the petitioner. The facts of that case do not resemble those of the present nor was an order there made under the same provision of law as here; but Mr. Sampath Aiyanga r relies on a few words contained in that judgment without reference to the facts of> that particular case. There, the award was actually made at a time beyond the period to which the date had been extended, and their Lordships remarked that when once an award was made and delivered, the power of the Court under Section 514 was spent. The reason they gave was that that contention (that the award is not valid) has to support it the express statutory enactment that no award shall be valid unless made within the period allowed by the Court.

(3.) Section 521 of the old Code did in fact say: No award shall be valid unless made within the period allowed by Court.