DORAISAMI PADAYACHI Vs. VAIDYALINGA PADAYACHI (DEAD)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The answer to the Full Bench reference being against him, Mr. Kuppusami Aiyar for the appellant has relied on another of the grounds taken here and in the lower Appellate Court, that time did not run between the 8th March, 1906 the date of the reference to arbitration and 31st October 1910, when it is alleged the arbitration proceedings came to an end by the death of the arbitrator. Section 21 of the Specific Relief Act provided that "if any person who has made such a contract (to refer to arbitration) and has refused to perform it, sues in respect of any subject which he has contracted to refer, the existence of such a contract shall bar the suit." As to this I agree with Richards, J., one of the referring Judges in Ram Kumar Singh v. Jagmohan Singh (1910) I.L.R. 33 A. 315 that the institution of a suit after the contract to refer is sufficient refusal to perform such a contract to bar the suit under the section. The result of this provision when it was in force was, it seems to me, to bar the plaintiff s right to sue for dissolution of partnership so long as the arbitration had not broken down or the other side had not refused to go on with it. If the arbitration had become impossible as by the death of the arbitrator or the other side had refused to go on with it, Section 21 would have ceased to operate as a bar to the plaintiff. The question then is, what is the effect to be attributed to the removal of this statutory bar by the repeal of this provision of Section 21 by Section 22 of the second schedule of the Code of Civil Procedure of 1908. The effect of the provision while it was in force, was to confer upon the other parties to the contract a right to have the question decided by arbitration and not by suit, and this was a substantive right of an important character. This being so, the repeal of this provision of Section 21 by the Civil Procedure Code of 1908 did not affect the right of the other parties to the contract which had accrued under it (General Clauses Act 1897, Section 6 (c),) and consequently if the plaintiff had brought the present suit immediately on the coming into force of the Code he would still have been liable to be met by a plea founded on the repealed provision, and it was only when by the death of the arbitrator in 1910 further proceedings in the arbitration became impossible that the plaintiff s right to sue was restored to him. It is I think clear that the special provision in Section 21 prevented time running against the plaintiffs under the Limitation Act while it was in force and whether the effect of this provision was merely to suspend the running of time under the Limitation Act, or to take the case out of the Article and bring it under Article 120, in either case, the suit would be within time. I may say however that I do not think that the Judicial Committee should be considered in Nrityamoni Dassi v. Lakhan Chandra Sen (1916) I.L.R. 43 C. 660 : 30 M.L.J. 529 to have departed from the view clearly expressed in Lala Soni Ram v. Kanhaiya Lal (1913) L.R. 40 I.A. 74 : 25 M.L.J. 131. We allow the appeal, reverse the decrees of the Lower Court and remand the case for disposal according to law. Costs incurred hitherto to abide Seshagiri Aiyar, J.

(2.) The points raised by Mr. Kuppusami Aiyar on this second occasion are by no means easy of solution. Upon one point my mind is clear. The parties referred the matters in dispute to arbitration before the new Code of Civil Procedure came into force. At that time the rights of the parties were regulated by Section 21 of the Specific Belief Act. That section says that the existence of a contract to refer "shall bar the suit." Mr. Muthiah Mudaliar s ingenious argument that the bar affects only the agreement to refer and not a pending reference is obviously untenable. As I read the section a right is, conferred on one of the parties to a contract to prevent the other from enforcing his rights other than through the tribunal chosen by the parties. Such a right cannot be said to be a mere incident of processual law. It is well- established that a right of appeal granted under a repealed Act is not affected by the new Act. Colonial Sugar. Refining. Co. v. Irving (1905) A.C. 369 Sadasiva Pillai v. Kalappa Mudaliar (1900) I.L.R. 24 M. 39 and Nana v. Sheku (1908) I.L.R. 32 B. 337. A vested right is not ordinarily taken away by a new Act. Gopeshwar Pal v. Jiban Chandra Chandra (1914) I.L.R. 41 C. 1125. Applying these principles, it seems to me that Section 22 of the Second Schedule to the new Code of Civil Procedure did not deprive the defendant of the right which he had of objecting to the suit, the matter in dispute having been referred to arbitration. It follows from this that so long as the arbitration was operative, the plaintiff was incapable of enforcing his rights in a Court of Law.

(3.) It is admitted that the proceedings were pending until October 1910 when the arbitrator died. In my opinion, the plaintiff was debarred from seeking the assistance of the Court till then. It was next argued that a bare institution of a suit would not amount to "a refusal to perform" so as to attract the provisions of Section 21 of the Specific Relief Act, and that as the plaintiff had always expressed his willingness to abide by the decision of the arbitrator, the defendant never had any right to plead the bar of Section 21. In Ram Kumar Singh v. Jagmohan Singh (1910) I.L.R. 33 A. 315. Mr. Justice Richards (as he then was) held in the judgment from which a Letters Patent Appeal was preferred, that the filing of a suit would amount to refusal to perform, and Mr. Justice Tudball who differed from him expressed no opinion on this question. The learned Judges who heard the Letters Patent Appeal did not question this dictum of Mr. Justice Richards. In my opinion the institution of a suit by the plaintiff would be an overt act indicative of an intention not to perform the contract entered into by him