Judgment

HIDAYATULLAH, C.J.I. : This is an appeal against a judgment and order of the Circuit Bench of the Punjab High Court at Delhi (Single Judge) in a matter arising under the Arbitration Act. By an agreement dated April 28, 1948 the appellant company entered into a contract with the Chief Director of Purchase (Food) acting on behalf of the Government of India. It is not necessary to give the details of this contract, because the matter was referred to arbitration under an arbitration clause included in the agreement between the parties. The award was made and signed on April 26, 1950. The Arbitrator awarded Rs.17,080-2-9 with costs in favour of the company. The Arbitrator, however, did not send a notice as such of the making and signing of the award but sent a copy of the award signed by him to the company. The company acknowledged the receipt of this copy by two letters which are dated May 5 and May 16, 1950. It appears that in the original which was retained in the office of the Arbitrator, it was stated that there was a covering letter giving notice of the making of the award, but the company denied that any such letter had been sent. However, nothing much turns on it as we shall show presently.

2. After the copy of the award was received by the company, it filed an application under Section 14 (1) of the Arbitration Act in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Delhi on March 30, 1951 for making the award rule of the court. It may be mentioned that on July 3, 1951, the Arbitrator sent the original award to the court also. Before the Subordinate Judge objection was taken by the Union of India that the application of the company to the court was delayed since such an application under Section 14 (1) of the Arbitration Act under Art. 178 of the Indian Limitation Act had to be made within 90 days of the receipt of the notice intimating that the award had been made and signed. This objection prevailed with the Subordinate Judge who rejected the application. A revision application was unsuccessfully made before the High Court and it is the order on the revision application which is the subject of appeal before us.

3. Originally the revision application went before a learned Single Judge of the High Court. He referred the matter to a Division Bench which in its turn referred the case for decision to a Full Bench. The Full Bench gave its opinion on November 17, 1961. Although the Full Bench discussed the matter it did not reach any conclusion in the case, because it felt that whether the application under S. 14 (1) of the Arbitration Act had been made within 90 days or not, was a question of fact which has to be decided by the learned Single Judge, and as the learned Single Judge had not gone into that question, the matter had to go back to him. When the case came before the learned Single Judge, he took some evidence and examined the question in detail. He upheld the decision of the Subordinate Judge not dismissed the revision application.

4. It has been argued before us by Mr. B. P. Maheshwari that the judgment under appeal is erroneous, because S. 14 (1) of the Arbitration Act requires that there should be a notice in writing and that notice had to be something besides the award of which a copy had been sent. He has cited a number of rulings in support of his contention that a notice in writing is incumbent before limitation under Art. 178 of the Limitation Act which applies to S. 14 (1) petitions, can start: In chief, he relies upon Ratnawa v. Gurishiddappa Gurushantappa Magavi, AIR 1962 Mys 135, Puppalla Ramulu v. Nagidi Appelaswami, AIR 1957 Andh Pra 11, Jagdish v. Sunder, ILR 27 Pat 86 Ganga Ram v. Radha Kishan ILR (1955) Punj 402 Badarla Ramakrishnamma v. Vattikonda Lakshmibayamma, ILR (1958) Andh Pra 166

5. It is not necessary to go into the reasoning which made the learned Judges in these cases to lay down that there must be a proper notice in writing of the making of the award. That follows in fact from the words of Sectio