Basheer, J.

These six appeals which have been filed under Section 39 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 (for short 'the Act'), are being disposed of by this common judgment since the parties and the issue involved in them are the same.

2. The question that arises for consideration in these cases can be posed thus :

Is not an Arbitrator appointed under the Act entitled and empowered to pass an award recording the terms of settlement reported by the parties and their respective counsel before him, orally?

To put it differently;

Is an Arbitrator bound to insist on the parties to file a formal petition for compromise as provided under Rule 3 Order 23 of the Civil Procedure Code in order to make his award valid and legally binding on the parties?

Or

Are the powers of an Arbitrator circumscribed by the provisions contained in Order 23 of the Civil Procedure Code?

3. Before we deal with the above issue, relevant facts may be Arb.As.12, 13, 14, 16, 18 and 19 OF 2003 briefly noticed.

4. These appeals arise from a common order passed by the Subordinate Judge's Court, Thalassery in a batch of Interlocutory Applications in three original suits, which were instituted for dissolution of partnership, rendition of accounts and other allied reliefs. The applications were filed under Sections 15 and 33 of the Act by some of the defendants in the suits to modify the award passed by the Arbitrator after conducting an enquiry regarding its validity. One of the defendants, who was apparently happy with the award, prayed in his applications that a decree may be passed in terms of the award. The court below refused to interfere with the award and held that it was not liable to be modified or set aside. On the contrary, the Court ordered that the award be made rule of the Court. Hence, these appeals.

5. The suits were instituted by one of the four brothers, who had built up a small business empire in Kannur District and in parts of Karnataka State. It appears that "inevitable discord" developed after some time and one of the brothers, namely Sreedharan, instituted the three suits referred to above before the Subordinate Judge's Court, Thalassery in OS.Nos.516/1994, 177/1995 and 178/1995. The defendants were the other two brothers, namely Sekharan and Narayanan, and the widow and children of deceased brother Lakshmanan.

6. The primary prayer in the three suits which related to three partnership concerns, namely M/s.Cannanore Central Oil Mills, M/s.K.Sreedharan and brothers and M/s.Ramananda Textiles, was for dissolution of partnership and rendition of accounts.

7. To cut a long story short, when one of the orders passed in the suits came up for consideration before the Apex Court, the Court appointed Mr.Justice K.P.Radhakrishna Menon, a retired Judge of this Court, as the sole Arbitrator. The learned Arbitrator passed an award on 28th November, 2001, effecting partition of the three items of immovable property referred to hereunder :-

"(i) Property where the Cannanore Central Oil Mills is situated and the Cannanore Central Oil Mills;

(ii) Property where the Ramananda Textiles is situated and the Ramananda Textiles(the property lies both in the Kannur Municipality and Puzhathi Panchayat); and

(iii) Talap property."

It may at once be noticed that there is no dispute that these were the only three items which were agreed to be partitioned among the parties.

8. For the sake of convenience, the operative portion of the award is extracted below :-

" It is agreed that the first item shown above is allotted to the share of Party No.4(Sreedharan); the property shown above as Item No.2 is allotted to Party No.2(Narayanan); and Item No.3 shown above is allotted jointly to the share of Parties 1 and 3 who are having equal shares. It is also agreed that for equalisation of shares Party No.4 shall pay Rs. 10 lakhs to Party No.3, who represents the heirs of deceased Lakshmanan. Similarly, Party No.2 shall pay to Party No.1 Rs. 10 lakhs. The equalisation amounts shall be paid by th