G. RADHAKRISHNA RAO, J.

( 1 ) IN this case a departmental person was appointed as Arbitrator. The agreement provides that an arbitrator from out of the panel of three arbitrators can be appointed. The contractor has approached the Court on the ground that the sole arbitrator is biased. No material is placed before the Court that he is biased. The learned counsel for the respondent- coutractor has relied upon a judgment of this Court reported in V. Raghunadha rao vs. State of A. P. 1 where in it was held :". . . . . . I am inclined to hold that in matters relating to Government contracts, fair procedure is that the disputes shall be referred to an independent arbitrator or panel of arbitrators of "their known integrity". Accordingly I hold that the procedure provided in clause 73 to refer to an arbitrator or a body of official arbitrators, is an unfair procedure offending Article 21 of the Constitution. "but the Supreme Court in The Secretary to the Government vs. Munuswamy mudaliar has taken a contrary view. The Supreme Court observed as follows:"this is a case of removal of a named arbitrator under Sec. 5 of the Act which gives jurisdiction to the Court to revoke the authority of the arbitrator. When the parties entered into the contract, the parties knew the terms of the contract including arbitration clause. The parties knew the scheme and the fact that the Chief Engineer is superior and the Superintending Engineer is subordinate to the Chief engineer of the particular Circle. In spite of that the parties agreed and entered into arbitration and iudeed submitted to the jurisdiction of the Superintending Engineer at that time to begin with, who, however, could not complete the arbitration because he was transferred and succeeded by a successor. In those circumstance on the facts stated no bias can reasonably be apprehended and made a ground for removal of a named arbitrator. In our opinion this cannot be. at all, a good or valid legal ground Unless there is allegation against the named arbitrator either against his honesty or capacity or mala fide or interest in the subject-matter or reasonable apprehension of the bias, a named and agreed arbitrator cannot and should not be removed in exercise of a discretion vested in the Court under Sec. 5 of the Act. Reasonable apprehension of bias in the mind of a reasonable man can be a ground for removal of the arbitrator. A predisposition, to decide for or against, one party, without proper regard to the true merits of the dispute is bias. There must be reasonable apprehension of that predisposition. The reasonable apprehension must be based on cogent materials. See the observations of Mustill and Boyd. Commercial Arbitration, 1982 Edition, Page 214. Hals- bury s laws of England, Fourth Edition, Volume 2, para 551, page 282 describe that the test for bias is whether a reasonable intelligent men, fully appraised of all the circumstances, would fell a serious apprehension of bias. "so when the Supreme Court in an identical case held that a departmental arbitrator cannot and should not be removed unless there is allegation against the named arbitrator either against his honesty or capacity or male fide or interest in the subject-matter or reasonable apprehension of the bias, it cannot be said that a single judge of the High Court can take a different view. It follows that a general presumption cannot be drawn that merely because a named arbitrator has already worked in that department or is working he is having a bias. The general presumption must be that all the officers are honest and they are discharging the duties lawfully unless contrary is proved. There is no hard and fast rule that Government officials should not be appointed as arbitrators. The parties are bound by the agreement under which they agreed that an arbitrator from out of the panel of arbitrators can be appointed. After the award is passed the Civil Court has got every right to go into the award and make it a rule of the

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