Mithan Lal - (1.) THIS civil revision arises out of the following circumstances.
(2.) CHANDU Lal applicant relying upon toe mercantile usage prevailing in Farukhabad filed same complaint in Kotwali police on which the defendants opposite parties were taken into custody. At that very time an agreement was arrived at between the, parties to refer their dispute to the arbitration of one Sri Ram Narain Kapur, who happened to be the brother of CHANDU Lal applicant. This agreement was executed on 2lst February 1955. It was followed by an award on 10th March 1955. The Arbitrator informed the parties of the making and signing of the award on 11th March 1955. Thereafter an application under Section 14 (2) of the Arbitration Act was filed on 23rd March 1955. No notice of the filing of the award was originally given, but the Court finding this defect accepted the objections, though filed beyond time. Since this is not a point in dispute before me it is not necessary to say anything more about it. Objections to the award were filed by the defendants. The main objections of the defendants were two. The first was that the customers of the parties were not made parties to the arbitration proceedings and so the agreement was invalid while the second objection was that the agreement had been executed under undue influence and duress. The trial court held that the customers were necessary to the dispute, while on the question of duress and undue influence it gave a finding that there was no duress or undue influence in entering into the agreement to arbitration. The matter was taken up in appeal and the learned District Judge, Farrukhabad, differed with the judgment of the trial court on bath the points. He has held that the customers were not necessary parties and that the award was not invalid on this ground. He however found that the agreement has been entered into under duress and undue influence and so the award was set aside under Section 30 of the Arbitration Act. The only point which has been canvassed in this case is that an award can be set aside under Section 30 only upon the three specitse grounds given in that section and that the phrase "is otherwise invalid" must be taken to be ejusdem generis with Clauses (a) and (b) of Section 30. This phrase cannot include invalidity of an arbitration agreement as Section 33 lays down separate procedure for the same. The further submission is that if a party acting upon the alleged invalid agreement has taken part in the arbitration proceedings, he has no right to challenge the award under Section 30 on the ground of invalidity of the agreement. Both these contentions of the learned counsel have no force.
(3.) A perusal of the scheme of the Arbitration Act will go to show that after an award has been made, the Court has been given a power to modify the award under Section 15 while the power to remit the award has been conferred by the provisions of Section 16. Under Sub-section (3) of Section 16 there is a further provision that an award remitted under Sub-section (1) shall become void on the failure of the arbitrator or umpire to reconsider it and submit his decision within the time fixed. The grounds for setting aside the award have been given in Section 30 which reads as follows: "30. An award shall not be set aside except on one or more of the following grounds, namely: (a) that an arbitrator or umpire has misconducted himself or the proceedings, (b) that an award has been made after the issue of an order by the Court superseding the arbitration or after arbitration proceedings have become invalid under Section 35; (c) that an award has been improperly procured or is otherwise invalid." The expression used in Clause (c), "or is other wise invalid" is a very wide expression and cannot be limited to the invalidity of the award on the grounds mentioned in Clauses (a) and (b) as argued by the learned counsel. An award will also be otherwise invalid if it has not been submitted after, its remission to the Arbitrator under Sub-section (1) of Section 16 read with Sub-section (3). It will further be void if the arbitration agreement contains a clause of enlarging the time for making the award except with the consent of all the parties to the agreement under Section 28(2). Both these grounds can form the basis of setting aside the award and will evidently be covered by Section 30 Clause (c). Similarly it the arbitration agreement is invalid or is not otherwise in accordance with law, the award may still be set aside on that ground which will be covered by Section 30(c).;