MUNICIPALITY OF AHMEDABAD Vs. RAVJIBHAI BHAILAL CONTRACTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against an order of the learned First Class Subordinate Judge of Ahmedabad directing that an award, exhibit 16, made by Mr. Shivdasani on a reference to him from two arbitrators as final umpire, be filed, and that a decree should be drawn up in its terms and in accordance with certain directions made in the body of the judgment. The defendant Municipality was ordered to pay its own costs and those of the plaintiff.

(2.) The dispute was between the respondent, Ravjibhai Bhailal, and the Municipality of Ahmedabad, and the only question we have to decide is whether Mr. Shivdasani, the umpire in question, was guilty of legal misconduct in the proceedings which culminated in his award.

(3.) The history of these differences is as follows- It appears that in 1921 the Municipal Committee had decided to introduce a new system of scavenging into Ahmedabad City. They entered into a contract with the respondent, and what was contemplated was that there should be a system of what were called trailers drawn by tractors, and that the refuse from the houses collected at certain fixed points should be carried in these trailers to the dumps, where it was to be disposed of. The system was, in the first place, tentative and applied to half the city only, but it was ultimately extended to the other half. Differences, however, arose apparently after the municipal elections about 1923, and these culminated in a reference to arbitration which was provided for in the agreements between the parties. Each side appointed an arbitrator, and the arbitrators chosen were Rao Saheb Dadubhai Purshottamdas Desai and Mr. Himatlal Dalsukhram Saheba. These gentlemen heard the evidence, and in the end differed from each other. Rao Saheb Desai was for awarding the contractor something over a lakh in damages, and Mr. Saheba thought that he should get nothing at all. One of the terms of the appointment was that before the arbitrators came to any decision, they should appoint an umpire, who was to decide any differences between them, and Mr. H. B. Shivdasani had been agreed on before the original proceedings began. The matter was accordingly referred to Mr. Shivdasani, and he seems to have received the papers somewhere about the middle of November, 1926. He examined the papers, and hearings before him began on December 4, and the award was finally made on December 20, 1926, as the arbitrator having been unable to make his award within time had asked for an extension. Mr. Shivdasani's finding was that a sum of Rs. 54,000 was due to the contractor.