Authored By : Rankin, Mitter

Rankin, C.J.

1. In this case, an award was made on the 3rd of August,1923, and it was filed in the High Court under the provisions of the IndianArbitration Act on the 31st of August, 1923. There was an assignment on thepart of the company in whose favour the award was made to the presentrespondents on the 15th of December, 1926. In January, 1927, the respondentsfiled a tabular statement and proceeded to issue notices in execution underrule 16 of Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure. These having been served,the matter came on for hearing before Mr. Justice Gregory on the 26th of April,1927, and it was objected that the application in execution was time-barred,because Art. 181 of the First Schedule to the Limitation Act applied, therebeing no other Article which applied. The learned Judge has held that Art. 183of the Limitation Act is applicable and that is the question before us.

2. There can be no doubt that the terms of section 15 of theArbitration Act do not mean that an award shall be or shall be deemed to be adecree and Mr. B.K. Ghosh, on behalf of the respondents, concedes thatcompletely. Indeed, it was clearly laid down by the Privy Council in the caseof E.D. Sassoon and Co. v. Ramdutt Ramkissen Das : (1922) I.L.R.50 Calc. 1 : L.R. 49 IndAp 366; and it has been laid down many times. The wordsof section 15 are these: "An award on a submission on being filed in theCourt in accordance with the foregoing provisions, shall (unless the Courtremits it to the reconsideration of the arbitrators or umpire or sets it aside)be enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court." So, there can be nodoubt that it is not only to be enforceable as if it were a decree in general,but, having been filed in a particular Court, it is to be enforceable as if itwere a decree of that Court.

3. Now, we have been pressed to hold that this provisionrefers only to the procedure or manner in which an award is to be enforced byexecution; and with reference to the case In re A Bankruptcy Notice [1907] 1K.B. 478, it is important to observe that section 12 of the English ArbitrationAct, 1889, states in express terms "An award on a submission may, by leaveof the Court or a Judge, be enforced in the same manner as a judgment or orderto the same effect". Under the wording of the English section, it seems tome to be reasonably clear that there could be no successful contention that the12th section of the Act of 1889 is addressed in any way to a question oflimitation. It is important to notice that the draftsman of the Indian Statute,having the language of the English Statute before him, has expressed himselfmuch more widely. The words are "be enforceable as if it were a decree ofthe Court." It is quite true that, even so, it is by no means clearwhether the language used in section 15 is intended to be taken not only asregards manner in the largest sense of that word, but also as regards time forthe purposes of limitation. It has been pointed out to us that similar widelanguage is to be found in section 42 of the Code of Civil Procedure where itsays that "the Court executing a decree sent to it shall have the samepowers in executing such decree as if it had been passed by itself". Now,in India, we know that the period of limitation is one thing for a decreepassed by a mofussil Court and another thing for a decree passed by a CharteredHigh Court. It is to be observed with reference to section 42 that the sectiondeals with powers of the Court executing it and only with those powers. So thatthere cannot be very much doubt that the question of limitation is excludedfrom the purview of that section. The question of limitation is not merely aquestion of power. The matter is one of very great importance and it is, Ithink to be noticed not merely that the Indian Statute uses wider language thanthe English Statute, but it makes no special provision for limitation. It seemsto me, in these circumstances, that, if one looks at the question of limitationfrom the point of view of the different alternatives, there can be oneinference only, and that is that the words employed by the Legislature in thefirst sub-section of section 15 of the Indian Arbitration Act were intended togo to the question of limitation as well as to the question of procedure. TheCourt has been reminded that questions of limitation are regarded for purposesof International Law as questions of procedure.

4. For the decrees of Civil Courts other than Chartered HighCourts the provisions of the Limitation. Act are very elaborate. There areprovisions whereby, within the time limited by section 48 of the Code,applications in execution can be made so long as they are made within threeyears of each other; and in the same way with regard to decrees of CharteredHigh Courts not only is there a limit of twelve years but there are elaboratearrangements for the extension of that period by payment of interest,acknowledgment and so forth. It is further to be observed that, on the questionof limitation under Art. 182, there are elaborate arrangements for dealing withthe case where the decree has been passed against more persons than one, andone of these persons is in a different position to the others. Now, we have toconsider the construction of section 15 of the Indian Arbitration Act with aview to choose between two alternatives. One is the view that an award forpurposes of limitations will be governed by Art. 182 or 183 according as it isfiled in a Chartered High Court or not, and the other is the view that whateverhappens to an award it can only be enforceable within a period of three yearsprescribed by Art. 181 for applications for which no period of limitation isprovided elsewhere in this schedule or by section 48 of the Code of CivilProcedure. It seems to me, looking at the absence of all provision in theIndian Limitation Act with reference to limitation, looking to the fact thatthe language of the English Act has been deliberately widened and to the factthat the question of time-limit for execution is a question of enforceabilityof the decree, as Art. 183 itself shows, that the correct view is that section15 does cover the question of time within which the execution of a decree maybe had. I, therefore, think that in tills case the period of limitation is twelveyears. This decision is in accordance with the view taken by a single Judge,Mr. Justice Harrison of the Lahore High Court, in the case of Pokhar Das v.Radha Kishen : (1923) 6 Lahore L.J. 564.

5. In this view the appeal fails and must be dismissed withcosts.

6. This judgment governs Appeal No. 65 of 1927, which isalso dismissed with costs.

Mitter, J.

7. I agree.

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Chaitram Sagormullvs. Hardwari Mull and Co.(14.07.1927 - CALHC)