Soumen Sen, J.

This is an application for setting aside of an award at the instance of the Eastern Railway.

The award is assailed principally on three grounds.

The first ground is the existence of the prior award.

2. The second ground is of legal misconduct since the arbitrator had no authority to allow Claim No. 6 by disregarding Clause 17(3) of General Conditions of Contract.

3. The third ground is that the arbitrator has exceeded its authority in allowing Claim No. 15 which is a claim on account of interest pendente lite by disregarding Clause 16(2) of the General Conditions of Contract.

4. In order to appreciate the first point I have called for affidavits and production of the record. It appears from the documents disclosed by the parties that the umpire published an award on 31st July, 1999. The reference arose as normally used to happen under the 1940 Act by filing an application under Section 20 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 which used to be treated as special suit being Special Suit No. 32 of 1995 filed by the claimant. On 15th September, 1995 the said application was allowed by directing the General Manager, Eastern Railway to take steps to appoint two arbitrators with