Wort, J.This appeal arises out of an action, which was brought on an award made on a submission to arbitration under an ekrarnama, dated 24th January 1936. The nature of the dispute is not disclosed in the submission to arbitration the ekrarnama merely stating that there was a dispute between the first party and the second party, the executants, as regards joint business relating to some golas jote land and monetary transactions under bahi khata.

2. I should have stated that this arbitration took place under Part 2, Schedule 2, Civil P.C. that is to say, arbitration without the intervention of the Court. The award by the arbitrators was published on 28th March 1936. It would then appear that a suit was brought on the award, or, perhaps to be more accurate, an application was made under the schedule to the CPC on 18th April 1936. The matter in its interlocutory stages came before the Court on several occasions; and ultimately on 2nd September 1937 the Court made this order:

Plaintiffs file hazree. Defendant also files hazree. The plaintiffs further file a petition stating that after the institution of this suit when award was called for and produced it was discovered that it was unregistered, that as there was still time to get it registered, the arbitrators applied for its return to get it registered, that the defendants objected to its return and the Court rejected the return of the award, that they have filed another award which the arbitrators rewrote and in which they made the previous award a part of it and that the subsequent execution and production of the award does not affect the suit, and prays that if the Court thinks that the suit is not maintainable, the application filed on 18th April 1936 be taken to be filed yesterday and the application filed by them on 18th April 1986 be read with the petition.

3. Then on 4th September the plaintiffs filed a petition requesting the Court to allow them to amend their plaint, and the amendment was allowed. By the amendment they (the plaintiffs) relied upon what was described by the arbitrators in the order which I have read as the re-written award dated 6th August 1937, which I might say at once was registered on the 14th of the same month. The objection to the first award appears to be that it was neither written on a sufficiently stamped paper, nor as I have already stated was it registered. The objections to the re-written award were two-fold, and it is upon those objections that Mr. Jha appearing on behalf of the defendant-appellant relies.

4. It is contended that if it was a re-writing of the original award, then the arbitrators having issued their award of 28th March 1936 they became functus officio; and secondly, the prayer that the second award might be treated as a new submission to arbitration is not open to Mr. Mitter who appears on behalf of the plaintiff-respondents for the reason that although the learned Judge in the Court below does state (if I may say so, rather loosely) that this award was re-written at the instance of the parties, in fact the evidence discloses that its was not at the instance of both parties but at the instance of the plaintiffs. It cannot therefore be treated as a new submission to arbitration, but can only be treated as the re-writing of the original award as the arbitrator has described it.

5. In my judgment it is a sufficient answer to the plaintiffs case to contend" that the arbitrators were functus officio and therefore had no jurisdiction whatever to re-write the award of 6th August 1937. But the appellants case does not depend upon that alone. Section 23, Registration Act, provides:

Subject to the provisions contained in Sections 24, 25 and 26, no document other than a will shall be accepted for registration unless presented for that purpose to the proper officer within four months from the date of the execution.

6. I have already indicated by what I have stated that it is not open to the respondents to contend that this was a new arbitration. It can only be treated as the original arbitration; and, if the respondents wish to avoid the argument that the arbitrators were functus officio, they are also bound to say that it was merely the original award re-written by the arbitrators. If it is treated as such, then the award comes within the mischief of Section 23 of the Act to which I have referred.

7. Mr. Mitter, during the course of his argument, relied upon the case in Sah Mukhun Lall Panday v. Sah Koondun Lall (75) 2 A.R. 210. That decision, however, of their Lordships of the Judicial Committee has no application to the facts of this case, the decision being that no time is fixed by the statute within which the registration of a deed presented and accepted for registration within four months from its execution must be complete. The point taken by the respondents here is that this was not presented for registration within four months and that it was not registered within four months. Quite clearly from the facts of this case this was presented for registration beyond the period of four months provided by Section 24. Again if the respondents were to abandon their amended claim and rely upon the original document, they have two points to meet; first that the document is not sufficiently stamped; and, secondly, that it is not registered at all; and by the provisions of Section 17(l)(e), Registration Act, it requires to be registered. In setting out the documents to be registered the clause of Section 17 to which I have referred provides:

Non-testamentary instruments transferring or assigning any decree or order of a Court or any award when such decree or order or award purports or operates to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of the value of one hundred rupees and upwards, to or in immovable property.

8. There is no question that an agreement to arbitration affects an immovable property, and there can also be no dispute in this case that the award, which is the subject-matter of this dispute does affect immovable property of the value of one-hundred rupees and upwards, and therefore comes within the mischief of that section. Although I am reluctant to come to the conclusion, I am bound in the circumstances to hold that the points taken by the defendant-appellant in this case must be maintained. The appeal therefore succeeds and the suit stands dismissed, but in the circumstances each party must pay his own costs.

Meredith J.

I agree.