Judgment This revision petition has been preferred by the 4th defendant in O.S. No. 37 of 1943, on the file of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Coimbatore. The order against which the revision petition has been preferred is that of the learned District Judge of Coimbatore affirming the order of the Subordinate Judge in I.A. No. 511 of 1944 in the original suit. I.A. No. 511 was filed by the plaintiff in the suit for recording a certain award decision under Order 23, rule 3, Civil Procedure Code. The application having been ordered by the Courts below learned counsel for the fourth defendant-petitioner urges before me that the provisions of section 47 of the Indian Arbitration Act have not been sufficiently borne in mind and correctly given effect to by the Courts below. The fourth defendant was not a party to the reference to arbitration which resulted in the award on the basis of which the Court was invited to make a decree in terms thereof. There was therefore no arbitration award with reference to the fourth defendant as the expression “award” which means an arbitration award, has to be understood in relation to the definition of the term “arbitration agreement” in section 2(a) of the Act. And so says Mr. Ramachandra Iyer in his able and forceful argument, it cannot be held that there was any arbitration against the fourth defendant in conformity with the provisions of the statute. If there was none such, says learned counsel next, it follows that the award decision cannot be accepted or taken into consideration so far as the fourth defendant is concerned as a compromise or adjustment of a suit by the Court before which the suit was pending. In the course of the argument before me the case in Arumuga Mudaliar v. Balasubramania1, has been brought to my notice, which the learned advocate for the petitioner has distinguished as a case in which there was a valid arbitration reference from the very inception which there is not in the present case so far as the fourth defendant is concerned. I must say I am impressed with the argument of learned counsel so far. I must say I am impressed with the argument of learned counsel so far. But then I have felt the difficulty and I have put it to the learned counsel that possibly the present case might well be considered as one in which after the award was made by the arbitrator which may not per se be binding on the fourth defendant, the Courts below have spelt out from the conduct of the parties an agreement on the part of the fourth defendant that she should abide by what the arbitrator had actually declared as the rights and obligations of the parties in respect of the suit property. The answer which Mr. Ramachandra Iyer has attempted is that the only case of the plaintiff in the Courts below was that the fourth defendant was in fact and in truth a party to the reference to arbitration and knew everything about it and was consequently bound by the proceedings before the arbitrators and their award. It however seems to me that that is not the exact fact of the situation. It does appear that before the trial Court the point was made that the award decision of the arbitrators might well be regarded as representing a certain compromise to which, on account of the assent given by the fourth defendant, later, effect might be given under Order 23, rule 2, Civil Procedure Code. That is in my opinion, fairly clear from a reading of the last paragraph of the judgment in two portions of which the learned Subordinate Judge has dealt with the position that because all the parties have signed the award decision including the fourth defendant the decision must be regarded as in effect a compromise entered into between the parties on the award. If this view of the situation which was suggested by me in the course of the arguments is accepted as properly borne out by the way in which the case was presented to the Courts below for decision, it is amply clear on the whole that there is no need for me to disturb the decision of the Courts below with reference to the application under Order 23, rule 3, Civil Procedure Code, that was made by the plaintiff notwithstanding that the fourth defendant was not a party to the original reference to arbitration. The fourth defendant must be treated as bound for the reasons given in the foregoing by the award rendered by the arbitrator and the decree that might well be passed on the basis of such a compromise under Order 23, rule 3, must be regarded as binding On the fourth defendant as well as the other parties to the suit. This Civil Revision Petition accordingly fails and is dismissed but in the circumstances without costs. K.S. ----- Petition dismissed.