LALDAS JIBHAI Vs. BAI LALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The learned District Judge has held the award to be no bar to the suit, out of which this appeal has arisen, because, in his opinion, the award does not confer any title by itself but "at the most amounts to an agreement to convey" it. The terms of the award do not, in my opinion, warrant that view.

(2.) The circumstances under which the award was passed are shortly these. Bai Lala (the first respondent) having mortgaged the property in dispute inherited by her as a Hindu widow from her husband, to Bechar Bhagwan (the second respondent), the appellants claiming as the reversionary heirs of the husband, filed Suit No. 582 of 1893 for a declaration that the mortgage was of a fraudulent and colourable character. Both the mortgagor (Bai Lala) and the mortgagee (Bechar Bhagwan) were parties to the suit. During its pendency, the parties referred the dispute to arbitration, which ended in the award. According to its terms, the mortgage in dispute was upheld but the present appellants were declared entitled to stand in the place of Bai Lala as mortgagors and to redeem the mortgage on a date fixed by the award; and in consideration of the relinquishment of the equity of redemption by Bai Lala, she was held entitled to the possession and enjoyment of 18 bighas of land and a house during her life for maintenance. There is indeed a clause in the award, which says that on payment of Rs. 1,700 by the appellants to the mortgagee, the latter should execute a deed of re- conveyance. That clause, however, does not stand as a condition precedent to the rights adjudged in the award. The award like a decree speaks from its date and the rights of the respective parties come into existence with the award. Thenceforth the right to redeem the mortgage now in dispute which had belonged to the widow, Bai Lala, was transferred to the appellants and she became entitled to the specific maintenance provided for her in the award and no more.

(3.) It is clear to my mind from these terms that whatever right Bai Lala had to redeem the mortgage was extinguished by and became merged in the award and that the award is a valid defence to her present suit. An award is not, as the learned District Judge has supposed, a mere agreement but is equivalent to a judgment. As Lush, J., has pointed out in Commings v. Heard (1879) L.R. 4 Q.B. 669 p. 672: "It is binding between the parties in all matters which it professed to decide. It was contended that an award is not an estoppel and that the parties are not concluded by an award, that it is distinguishable from a judgment. When once a matter has been decided between the parties, the parties ought to be concluded by an adjudication, whatever it may be.... It is not a new doctrine that an award is a bar."