M.R.Mallick, J. - (1.) THIS is a suit under section 20 of the Indian Arbitration Act for filing the Agreement and for passing some consequential order in terms of Clause 39 of the Agreement which, according to the plaintiff, is the Arbitration Clause.
(2.) ON behalf of the defendant, Life Insurance Corporation of India, a preliminary objection has been raised and an application has also been fled to that effect. An affidavit-in-opposition has also been filed raising preliminary objection against the maintainability of the petition. My attention has been drawn to Clause 39 of the Agreement and it is submitted that the present plaintiff has sought to file the Arbitration Amendment and also sought for reference to the Arbitrator as disputes have arisen on the following two points, namely, (1) Termination of Agreement ; and (2) Demand of about Rs. 7,00,000/- from the defendant, Life Insurance Corporation of India.
(3.) IT is submitted that the termination order is an excepted matter, not referable to arbitration. IT is also submitted that Clause 39 of the Agreement clearly spells out that all disputes and differences have to be first referred to the E.D. (B) , meaning thereby, Executive Director (Building) and the decision of the Executive Director (Building) on the excepted matter of the Agreement shall be final and cannot be referable to arbitration. Regarding other matters disputes can be referred to arbitration under Clause 39 after the matter is refered to E.D. (B) . The defendant, therefore, submits that the plaintiff has not referred any of the two disputes to the Executive Director (Building) and without doing that he cannot file this application under section 20 of the Indian Arbitration Act.;