Valmiki J. Mehta, J.

1. In this petition, filed under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, a preliminary issue has arisen with regard to whether the hearing of the petition on merits can take place or the same is to be deferred till payment of the requisite stamp duty and applicable penalty. The need for decision on this preliminary issue has arisen because of the objection taken by this Court, suo moto, with regard to the non-entitlement of the petitioner to argue the petition unless the impugned Award is impounded under Section 33 of the Stamp Act, 1899 and stamp duty with penalty is paid either as per the orders of this Court under Section 33 of the Stamp Act or by the Collector under Section 40 of the said Act. The respondent Union of India was not represented at the hearing, and as already stated by me, the objection under Section 33 of the Stamp Act has been raised by this Court suo moto. There is another issue as to whether by one petition two separate Awards can be challenged, but, I am not taking notice of the same for the present.

2. The Awards came to be passed on account of the disputes which arose between the parties wherein the petitioners were granted licences of the Radio Paging Services by the respondent in terms of the Licence Agreements dated 9.9.1996. The License Agreements total to eleven in number and were for different cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta etc. The petitioners had lodged a claim in the arbitration proceedings for Rs. 1325 crores. One relevant additional fact to be noted is that admittedly the Radio Paging Services were not started in any of the eleven cities for which licences were granted to the petitioners. The Arbitrator dismissed the claims of the petitioners and the operative paragraph of each of the two Awards reads as under:-

"22. For the reasons discussed hereinabove, it is necessary to hold that none of the three claims (1) return back, with interest, of initial payment of licence fee (2) return back, with interest, of the money received from invocation of the bank guarantees; and (3) payment of wasted expenditure calculated in crores are correct. The claim of paying back of all these claims are liable to be rejected. Similarly, the claim for remainder licence fee made on behalf of non-Claimant is not correct and is left undecided. However, the retention and appropriation of the initial payment and money received on invocation of bank guarantee respectively is permissible and correct. This award is passed accordingly. The parties shall bear their own costs."

3. The Arbitrator while passing the Awards and dismissing the claims of the petitioner has noted that he was forced to pass the Award on plain paper because in spite of the directions, the claimant/petitioners failed to furnish the stamp paper of the requisite value.

4. The issue therefore to be decided by this Court is, whether this Court before hearing objections to the Award on merits, is entitled to impound the Awards under Section 33 of the Stamp Act, 1899 and, only when the requisite stamp duty is paid with appropriate penalty only then can the objections on merits be heard.

5. The following Sections of the Stamp Act, 1899 are relevant for arriving at a decision on this issue:-

"33. Examination and impounding of instruments. - (1) Every person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, and every person in charge of a public office, except an officer of police, before whom any instrument, chargeable, in his opinion, with duty, is produced or comes in the performance of his functions, shall, if it appears to him that such instrument is not duly stamped, impound the same.

(2) For that purpose every such person shall examine every instrument so chargeable and so produced or coming before him, in order to ascertain whether it is stamped with a stamp of the value and description required by the law in force in India when such instrument was executed or first executed:

Provided that -

(a)