GURMUKH SINGH Vs. DR. RANBIR SINGH AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS F.A.O. is directed against the order, dated 24th June, 1970, passed by the trial Court on an application made under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 (Act X of 1940), hereinafter referred to as the Act, to stay the proceedings in a suit for possession by way of partition.

(2.) THE question that arises for consideration in this appeal is the ambit and scope of the expression 'taking any other steps in the proceedings' occurring in Section 34 of the Act. Before proceeding with the consideration of the scope and ambit of the said expression, the relevant facts which have a bearing on the proper understanding of the matter may be noticed.

(3.) IT was urged that the arbitration clause governed all disputes relating to the said property, whether relating to the share in, or nature of, the property that a party has to get in partition. Before the application under Section 34 of the Act was presented to the trial Court by the Appellant, he had already moved an application under Section 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure with a prayer for the stay of the proceedings on the ground that the matters in issue in the present suit were directly and substantially the same as were involved in the above -mentioned appeal pending for decision in the High Court, which decision will operate as res judicata on that question before this Court, and so pending the decision of the appeal in the High Court, the present proceedings may be stayed. The trial Court dismissed the application on the ground that there was no valid ground for referring the matter again to the arbitrator, the dispute had already been referred to the arbitrator, and what is being done now by the Plaintiff before the trial Court is to give effect to the award of the arbitrator. It is against this order of the trial court that the present first -appeal has been filed by the Defendant, as already noticed.