The court can consider condonation of delay under Section 5 of the Limitation Act if the reasons for delay are justified.

Shiv Narayan Dhingra, J.

1. This petition was dismissed in default on 21 st September 2007. Thereafter, two applications being IA No. 3810 of 2008 under Section 9 Rule 4 of CPC and another application being IA No. 3811 of 2008 for condonation of delay were filed, which were listed on 31 st March 2008. On 31 st March 2008, none appeared for the applicant, the aforesaid two applications were dismissed in default on 31 st March 2008. Then another application being IA No. 6660 of 2008 was filed under Section 151 CPC for restoration of application under Section 9 Rule 4 CPC.

2. For the reasons stated in IA No. 6660 of 2008 under Section 151 CPC, the same is allowed and IA No. 3810 of 2008 is hereby restored to its original number.

3. IA No. 3810 of 2008 is for restoration of the petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996, which was dismissed in default on 21 st September. The application is allowed for the reasons stated therein. The petition is restored to its original number.

IA No. 7975/2007

1. By this order, I shall dispose of this application under Section 34(5) of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (for short, "the Act") and Section 5 of Limitation Act for condonation of delay in refilling the instant petition.

2. The award in this case was passed by the learned Arbitrator on 27 th May 2006. It is not known as to when the Arbitrator sent this award to the parties. However, the objections against the award were filed by the petitioner in this Court on 26 th August 2006. Even if three months period is counted from 27 th May, 2006, the objections were filed within the period of three months as set out under Section 34(3) of the Act. However, certain objections were raised by the Registry on the petition and the petition was returned back for removing those objections. Thereafter, this petition was filed after about 11 months on 18 th July 2007. It is this delay in refilling the instant petition for condonation of which this application has been made by the applicant/petitioner.

3. This application made by the petitioners advocate is accompanied by an affidavit. It is submitted by the petitioners counsel that the petition was taken back for curing the defects as pointed out by the Registry. Thereafter, uncle of the counsel for petitioner suffered a heart attack and the counsel for petitioner remained out of his office for more than 20 days. Since the matter was not listed before the Court, it was not reflected in the diary maintained by the counsel and it slipped from his memory when he resumed working in the office. The clerk of the counsel for the petitioner, who collected papers of the case from the Registry, placed the same in wrong file of the same cause title. It is only when the petitioner made inquiries from the counsel after receipt of a notice of execution proceedings that the counsel realized that the present petition has not been rectified and then counsel for the petitioner took steps for rectifying the petition.

.4. This Court vide order dated 20 th July 2007 observed its dissatisfaction regarding the reasons stated by the counsel and wanted the counsel to file additional affidavit with supporting documents giving further details and particulars with regard to listing of OMP 90 of 2005 from the time when the papers of present petition were stated to have been taken back. In the additional affidavit, counsel for the petitioner/applicant stated that OMP No. 90 of 2005 came up for hearing on 24 th May 2007 and on that date no effective hearing took place on account of an adjournment requested by the counsel for the respondent and, therefore, it did not come to the notice of the counsel that the papers were lying in

.that file. Notice of execution of award was received by the petitioners central office wherefrom the same was forwarded to Legal Section and it was registered with legal section on 4 th June 2007. This execution was assigned to the same counsel Shri H.S. Kohli by t