Judgement

SABYASACHI MUKHARJI, J.:- The respondent No. 1 herein was awarded the contract in question for the construction of staff quarters for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the petitioner herein and the work had to be completed within the stipulated period mentioned in the contract. Since, however, the work was not being done in the manner as the Delhi Municipal Corporation thought it ought to have been done, the petitioner wrote 29 letters during June, 1978 to July, 1980 regarding the timely completion of the work. It is alleged that the work was not completed by the 15th of January, 1980 as per the schedule in the contract. Show cause notice was given to the respondent-contractor. The contractor failed to give satisfactory reply and according to the petitioner, the contract was rescinded. Thereafter several other letters were written which are not material to refer. There was an arbitration clause in the agreement. On 2nd November, 1982 an application was filed under section 20 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 (hereinafter called the Act) in the Delhi High Court. A learned single Judge, of the said High Court directed reference of the dispute and directed the Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation or anyone nominated by him to enter into reference. The Commissioner on 17th of March, 1983 appointed one Shri S. M. Hasnain, Arbitrator and Superintending Engineer No. II, of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi as the arbitrator. He is respondent No. 2 in this petition. The said arbitrator entered upon the reference and thereafter on 21st of August, 1984 submitted his award allowing some claims of the contractor and some counterclaims of the Municipal Corporation. The Municipal Corporation filed its objections to the said award. The learned single Judge of the High Court by his judgment and order dated 22nd of October, 1986 directed that the award be made a rule of the Court. A Letters Patent Appeal was filed thereafter but the same was summarily dismissed by a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court on 25th May, 1987. The petitioner seeks leave in this petition under Article 136 of the Constitution to challenge the said order. As the learned Division Bench did not give reasons, we must refer to the order of the learned single Judge.

2. The arbitrator gave reasons in support of the award, The question is whether reasonableness of the reasons in a speaking award is justiciable under Article 136 of the Constitution. We are of the opinion that such reasonableness of the reasons given by an arbitrator in making his award cannot be challenged in a proceeding like the present. It is desirable, however, that we state our reasons for so holding.

3. In order to appreciate this the award of the arbitrator must be looked into. The arbitrator in his award has dealt with various claims, one of the main claims was the claim of Rs. 23,850/- out of which Rs. 8,300/- was in the form of fixed deposit receipt carrying interest and the balance amount of Rs. 15,520/- was deducted as security of 10% from the bills of the claimant. According to the claimant this amount had wrongly been forfeited by the Corporation at the time of rescission of the contract and that the same should be refunded to him. It was held by the arbitrator that there was provision in the agreement for extension of time for completion of the contract, as well as for levy of compensation for delay. Therefore, it could not be taken that time was the essence of the contract. The arbitrator had opined that according to the respondents own admission there was delay of nearly four months in the commencement of the work due to giving of the layout etc. There was also delay in the execution of sanitary work by another contractor previously employed by the petitioner and this work was still incomplete at the time of the making of the award and as such complete site had not been made available to the present contractor in time. Further there was provision in the agreement for extension of t