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2005 DIGILAW 3221 (RAJ)

United Construction Company Jalesar Road v. State of Rajasthan

2005-12-06

GYAN SUDHA MISRA

body2005
Judgment Gyan Sudha Misra, J.-This appeal has been preferred against the order dated 211.1990 passed by the District Judge, Jaipur City, Jaipur in Civil Misc. Arbitration Case No. 42/1990 by which the learned District Judge refused to modify the award passed in favour of the appellant on 12.1990 and made the said award a rule of the Court and thus passed a decree in terms of the award. 2. It is clear on perusal of the materials on record as also the award passed by the Arbitrator that a contract for manufacturing brick coal had been awarded to the appellant for a sum of Rs. 14 lacs for supply of two lacs pakka bricks against which he has already received Rs. 12,14,900/-. The claimant-appellant, however, was aggrieved that the balance amount of Rs. 1,80,000/-should have also been paid to him as the respondents had failed to provide license to him for lifting the coal which was to be used in the manufacturing process of the brick. It was held by the Arbitrator that if license of short term permit was not given to the claimant-appellant, he had a right to stop the manufacturing of bricks and tiles. He, however, held that he was entitled to charges for this purpose and hence allowed a further sum of Rs. 15,000/-to the claimant-appellant on this count. The claimant-appellant was held entitled to a further sum of Rs. 10,955/- + Rs. 5,000/- for breach of the contract for not providing license/short term permit to the claimant-appellant. However, the balance amount claimed was denied by the Arbitrator. The claimant-appellant thereafter approached the Court of the District Judge Jaipur city, Jaipur for making the award a rule of the Court but at the same time also raised objections with regard to the claim which had been disallowed by the Arbitrator and it was submitted that his entire claim should have been accepted and allowed by the Arbitrator. .3. The learned District Judge, vide its impugned order dated 211.1990, made the award dated 12.1990 a rule of the Court and rejected the objections which had been filed by the claimant-appellant for allowing the claim of the appellant in its entirety, meaning thereby that the amount which had been disallowed by the Arbitrator was upheld by the learned District and Sessions Judge. The appellant-Construction Company thereafter has preferred this appeal in the year 1991 under Section 15 of the Arbitration Act 1940 taking recourse to the provision that the Court has power to modify the award. He subsequently had to give up this point since he also could notice that this provision has already been given effect to by the learned District and Sessions Judge where the appellant had filed an application for modification of the award under Section 15 of the Act of 1940. It is obvious that the same provision cannot be allowed to be taken recourse to by the appellant for the second time before this Court. He, however still submitted that this Court should exercise its power under Section 16 of the Act of 1940 by remitting the award to the Arbitrator or umpire for reconsideration upon such terms as it thinks fit which are as follows:- .(a) wherethe award has left undetermined any of the matters referred to Arbitrator or where it determines any matter not referred to arbitration and such matter cannot be separated without affecting the determination of the matters referred; or .(b) where the award is so indefinite as to be incapable of execution; or .(c) where an objection to the legality of the award is apparent upon the face of it. 4. The submission of the Counsel for the appellant is clearly devoid of substance for technical as also for legal and unsustainable reason. In the first place the appellant has not even urged in his memo of appeal that the matter be remitted to the Arbitrator under Section 16 of the Act of 1940 and the appeal has merely been filed on the ground that the Court has wrongly refused to exercise its jurisdiction by not modifying the award which has been passed by the Arbitrator. But assuming that this Court were to ignore this technical flaw in the memo of appeal, the order of the Court below refusing to modify the award also appears to be clearly justified. As per the appellants case, he was entitled to payment on account of breach of the terms and conditions of the agreement inasmuch as the respondents had failed to provide license/short term permit to the appellant for lifting coal to be used in the manufacturing of bricks and, therefore, the amount should have been paid to him for breach of this condition. The Counsel has missed that the Arbitrator has already awarded an amount on this count and the entire amount, which comes to is Rs. 13 lacs which has already been paid to the appellant and a nominal amount has been deducted because the appellant had not made the entire supply to the respondents on the plea that the coal could not be lifted by him due to the fact that the license was not made available to him. It is not a case where the Arbitrator has not gone into this aspect of the matter and sufficient reason has been assigned in this regard. The impugned award, therefore, do no contain any illegality which can be treated as an error apparent on the face of the record so as to remit the matter to the Arbitrator for a fresh consideration. The contract had been awarded to the appellant for a sum of Rs. 14 lacs against which the appellant has already received more than Rs. 13 lacs and only a nominal amount has been deducted for not making the entire supply to the respondents. In the opinion of this Court, full justice has been done to the appellant by the Arbitrator vide the award passed by him and the objections filed against the same by the appellant has also been gone into by the District and Sessions Judge. A third round of litigation in this regard, in absence of any illegality in the award, which had been passed in the year 1992, is not fit to be raised in the year 2005 giving rise to multiplicity of the proceeding on account of the plea of the appellant by entering into a scrutiny of the award and thereafter remitting the same to the Arbitrator. 5. The appeal thus has no force and hence it stands dismissed.