Bench:
Sabhyasachi Mukharji, K Jagannatha Shetty
Appellant:
Madhao s/o Shrihari Deshpande
Respondent:
Madhav s/o Trimbak Dharmadhikaree
Issue
Whether the High Court of Bombay, Nagpur Branch, was right in rejecting the revision application summarily when the Judge held that the award was wrongly presented in his Court and he had no jurisdiction to go into the question of the validity of the award?
Facts
- Notice had been issued indicating that the matter would be disposed of at the notice stage.
- The respondent did not appear.
- Special leave was granted and the appeal was disposed off.
- There was a reference to an arbitrator.
- The award was filed in the civil court at Nagpur and an objection was filed against the said award.
- The District Judge dismissed the application on the basis that Nagpur was not the Court that had jurisdiction to entertain the application.
Analysis
- The Court held in his order inter alia that most of the parties to the agreement were residents of Warora, in Chandrapur district. While scrutinizing the agreement of reference carefully, the place of execution of the agreement seemed to be omitted deliberately with intention of filing the award in the Civil Court at Nagpur, as the arbitrator was resident of Nagpur and for his convenience of filing, the place of execution seemed to be omitted.
- It appeared that the agreement for reference was prepared and drafted in Nagpur as the stamp paper was purchased in Nagpur. This didn’t mean though that the agreement of reference was executed in Nagpur as most of the parties were residents of Warora and most of the property of the suit except Plot No. 9 of Shiwaji Nagar, Nagpur was situated in Warora in Chandrapur District. Drawing an advance inference, it was stated that the agreement of reference was executed in Warora, Chandrapur District, which comes under the local jurisdiction of the Civil Judge, Senior Division, Chandrapur.
Relevant paragraph of the original judgement
- The Civil Judge held that the award passed by the arbitrator should have been filed in the Court of Civil Judge, Senior Division, Chandrapur, as only a bit of property was situated in Nagpur and the residence of arbitrator at Nagpur did not give local jurisdiction to the Court at Nagpur. He dismissed the application with the order that award be returned for presentation to the proper court having legal jurisdiction.
Judgement
The Supreme Court held that the Civil Judge was at fault in view of the provisions of Sections 17 and 20 of the CPC. Part of the dispute which was the subject matter of dispute was within the jurisdiction of Nagpur Court. This can be further corroborated by Section 2(c) of the Arbitration Act, 1940. The Nagpur Court had part of the jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The Supreme Court further stated that the High Court was also in error for not entertaining the application and not setting aside the order of the learned Civil Judge. Orders of both the Civil Court and High Court were set aside and the appeal was allowed. The Civil Judge then proceeded with the objection to the award filed in his court at Nagpur.
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