The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the jurisdictional provisions under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and related Acts, determining the appropriate court for entertaining petitions under different sections of the Act.

1. These two revision petitions have arisen out of the common order passed by the District Judge, Gopalganj, in Misc. case no. 39 of 1999 and 40 of 1999.

2. Petitioners in both the revision petitions have filed separate petition under Section 14 and 15 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for referring the matter of dispute between them and the Superintending Engineer, Flood Control Survey representing the State of Bihar. Objections were raised regarding the maintainability of the petitions and Jurisdiction of the District Judge. Serestedar of the court of the District Judge gave notes to the effect that the District Judge has got no power to entertain these petitions and that from the averments made those petitions cannot be under Sections 14 or 15 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act rather those might be construed as under Section 8 of the Act. By the impugned order learned Dist. Judge held that the petitions are misconceived as those can be construed only under Section 8 of the Act and that too those must have been filed before the appropriate civil court of the district having jurisdiction to entertain the petitions. Hence, this revision petitions have been preferred by the above-named petitioners.

3. During the course of argument learned counsel appearing for and on behalf of the petitioners has conceded that wrong nomenclature was given in the petitions and virtually the petitions were filed as initial petitions for appointment of arbitrator and referring the dispute to arbitrator as contemplated under Section 8 of the Act on the basis of the arbitration Clause in the agreement arrived at between the parties. Then the only question remains as to whether the learned District Judge had committed error holding that he had no jurisdiction to entertain these petitions and returned the same to the petitioners for the purpose of filing before appropriate court. His submissions are that as per definition of the court and as per Section 2 (1) (e) of the Act the court means the principal civil court of original jurisdiction in a district and, as such, the District Judge being the principal civil court in the district he is to be construed to have the only power and jurisdiction to entertain such petition. His submissions are that the definition of court of the old Act as per Section 2 (1) has been narrowed down in the new Act in the definition as contained in Section 2 (1) (e). Under the old provisions court meant any civil court except the court of small causes whereas under the definition in new Act 1996 court has been defined as under:

"The principal civil court of original jurisdiction in a district includes the High Court in exercise of its ordinary and original civil jurisdiction having jurisdiction to decide the questions forming the subject matter of the arbitration if the same had been the subject matter of a suit but it does not include any civil court of a great inference to such principal civil court or any court of small causes."

4. So the principal civil court of original jurisdiction has been qualified to the extent of having jurisdiction to decide the question if it would have been a suit of the same subject matter. By referring to definition of District Judge as per Section 3 (17) of the General Clauses Act 1897 it has been argued that the District Judge is the principal civil court of original jurisdiction. As per the General Clauses Act the District Judge means the Judge of a principal civil court of original jurisdiction but shall not include a High Court in the exercise of its ordinary or extraordinary original civil jurisdiction. Thus, as per the General Clauses Act also the Judge of a principal civil court of original jurisdiction is meant a District Judge but hierarchy of the civil court has been made by the Bengal Agra and Assam Civil Courts Act, 1887 and under that Act the court of Subordinate Judge is construed to be the principal civil court of original jurisdiction having infinite