The central legal point established in the judgment is the limited jurisdiction of the court to examine the correctness of an arbitration award on merits, as per Section 30 of the Indian Arbitration Act.

( 1 ) IT appears that this IA was not numbered by the registry inadvertently. Let it be numbered.

( 2 ) PETITIONER had filed the objections under Section 20 of the Indian Arbitration act, 1940 (the "act" for short) which was registered as Suit No. 990-A/92. By order dated 3/02/1995 direction was issued that the arbitration agreement be filed. Mr. Gian Chand Jain, a retired Judge of this Court was appointed as the Sole arbitrator to decide the disputes raised in the petition. Although with this order nothing survived as far as main suit was concerned, however, it appears that as petitioner had also filed IA No. 2399/92 along with the Suit in which petitioner was praying for interim order. By order dated 3/02/1995 it was directed that respondent shall not discontinue the electricity of the petitioner on account of non-payment of the disputed bill (subject matter of arbitration) till the award is made by the learned Arbitrator. The petitioner was however required to furnish a Bond for the sum in question within two weeks from the date of order to the satisfaction of the Registrar of this Court. It appears that the matter was kept pending because of this reason inasmuch as further proceedings in the case were conducted by the registrar/joint Registrar insofar as furnishing of the bond is concerned.

( 3 ) IN the meantime the learned Arbitrator entered upon reference and proceeded to adjudicate upon the disputed bill. The bill in question is electricity bill issued by the respondent which pertains to the period from May, 1990 to July, 1991. The demand raised in the bill is Rs. 25,81,490. 55 paise. The dispute referred to arbitration for determination was couched in the following language as can be seen from order dated 3/02/1995.

"the dispute in question which is referred to arbitration is as to whether the aforesaid provisional supplementary bill is valid and lawful despite the fact that earlier regular monthly bills had been raised for the said period and. payment stood received. "

( 4 ) THE learned Arbitrator after hearing the parties made and published the award dated 14/01/1997. As per this award, the learned Arbitrator declared that the impugned bill dated 25/02/1992 for Rs. 25,81,490. 55 was invalid and unlawful. After the aforesaid award was rendered, the learned. Arbitrator filed the same in this Court. This was followed by application (IA No. 3242/97) filed by the petitioner under Sections 14 and 17 of the Act for making the award rule of the court. Petitioner also filed another application (IA No. 3243/97) under section 41 read with schedule II of the Act seeking the discharge of the surety bond. Notice of these applications was issued to the respondents. On receiving the notice respondents filed IA dated 14/10/1997 raising objections under Sections 30 and 33 of the Act against the impugned award dated 14/01/1997. Reply was filed by the petitioner to these objections. On the basis of pleadings of the parties, following issues were framed on 13/11/1998:

"1. Whether the award is liable to be set aside on the grounds taken in the objection petition? "2. Relief.

( 5 ) BOTH the parties stated that there was no need to produce evidence and parties would rely upon the record of the learned Arbitrator and the documents. Arguments were accordingly heard on this IA.

( 6 ) THE main submission of the learned Counsel for the respondent/objector was that the learned Arbitrator had ignored relevant material and evidence on record which was produced by the respondent before the learned Arbitrator: His submission was that the learned Arbitrator failed to take into consideration the statement of Mr. Narender Jain, RW-2 who was a technical person. He contended that his report/version should have been accepted when there was nothing on record to contradict the same. Further, according to him, the report of the inspecting team who conducted inspection of the premises was not taken into consideration. On the other hand, the learned Ar