K.KANNAN,J. - (1.) The alleged award by a Contractor's Union was allowed to prevail in spite of the objection brought by the petitioners that there existed no arbitral agreement and the assumed jurisdiction by the Private Construction Labour Contractors Union cannot be stated to an award passed under the provisions of Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996.
(2.) Before much of the arguments got under way, on the admitted position that there was no agreement between the parties prescribing for an arbitration agreement, I asked the counsel for the respondent to support the manifest illegal order. The counsel argues with passion that the case is well-founded. I will have to only enumerate the arguments to reject them as untenable.
(3.) The counsel for the respondent states that labour rates for any kind of work had been settled by the Labour Contractors Union and since the respondent was the member of the Union, any person who engages the respondent will be governed by the conditions of labour rates that include the reference to arbitration as well. Apart from the entrustment of work by the petitioners to the respondent there is nothing brought on record to show that there is any arbitration agreement which has been entered into between the petitioners and respondent. The Arbitration agreement is defined under Section 2(b) read with Section 7. Section 7 requires the agreement to submit to arbitration must have arisen out of a contract and such an arbitration agreement may be in the form of the Arbitration Clause in a contract or in the form of separate agreement. Clause 7(3) states that arbitration agreement shall be in writing and Clause 7(4) requires that the agreement shall be signed by the parties. There is nothing on record or even the faintest contention that the petitioners had signed in any arbitral agreement that provided for arbitration. If there was no arbitral agreement in so many words providing for a reference to arbitration there can be no assumption of jurisdiction by self proclaimed arbitrator.;