( 1 ). This civil revision is directed against the order of the learned Additional District Judge, Delhi, dated 12. 1. 99, thereby returning a finding that the plaint is not maintainable before the court and the matter in dispute be referred to the arbitration as per clause 9 of the lease deed.

( 2 ). The relevant facts to be noted for the disposal of the present revision petition are that the petitioner herein had filed a suit for recovery of possession of the tenanted premises after terminating the tenancy of the respondent and for mesne profits for use and occupation. The suit was contested by the respondent-defendant inter-alia on the ground that there exited an arbitration agreement between the parties in terms of clause 9 of the lease deed dated 1/04/1992 and, therefore, the suit of the plaintiff before the civil court/judicial authority was not maintainable. Other averments and allegations made in the plaint were also appropriately replied. The petitioner-plaintiff did not chose to file any replication to the written statement of the defendant and rather sought a judgment in terms of the suit prayer based on certain admissions of facts made by the defendant in their written statement. It was at this stage that the learned trial court considered the objections of the defendant about the maintainability of the civil suit and held that there exist an arbitration agreement between the parties as contained in the lease agreement dated 1. 4. 1992 and ordered as above.

( 3 ). I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have given my thoughtful consideration to their respective submissions. Mr. S. K. Luthra, counsel for the petitioner has challenged the impugned order on a variety of grounds. The first and foremost being that the defendant had not invoked the provisions of section 8 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 (in short "act") for making a reference to the arbitrator by making an application or a specific prayer to that effect in the written statement. The other related submision is that the respondent-defendant by filing the written statement will be deemed to have taken step in the proceedings in the civil suit and was debarred from invoking the jurisdiction of the court under Section 8 of the Act. A bare reading of Section 8 of the act would show that the judicial authority before which an action is brought in a matter which is the subject matter of arbitration agreement shall, if a party so applied not later than when submitting his first statement on the substance of the dispute, refer the parties to arbitration. The question is whether this mandate of law could have been ignored by the court mainly on the ground that no specific application or prayer for reference or dispute to arbitration was made or it did not proceed the filing of the written statement. In the opinion of this court the these circumstances were not such as should have precluded the court from exercising its jurisdiction under Section 8 keeping in view the object of the Act as fully detailed in section 5 of the said Act and as interpretted by the courts in recent times. The defendant clearly brought it to the notice of the trial court about the existence of the arbitration agreement at first ever opportunity which he had and, therefore, it was the bound duty of the court to have consider this aspect, lest the very object of the Act is frustrated.

( 4 ). Learned counsel for the petitioner has then urged that the learned trial court has erred in acting upon the lease deed dated 1. 4. 1992 which is an unstamped and unregistered document and since it tended to create the lease for a period of over one year it was not a valid lease agreement and consequently the arbitration agreement contained therein did not constitute a valid arbitration agreement. Yet another submission is that as the lease was for a period of three years, the arbitration agreement, if any, contained in the said lease agreement also automatically lapsed