Agreement containing terms of another contract parties if bound by arbitration clause.

Basheer Ahmed Sayeed, J.- The point that arises for consideration in this revision petition is whether by reason of a certain clause in the contract, by which the parties agreed that the terms and conditions of the Nellimarla or Chittavalasa Jute Mill Company’s contract should be binding between the parties, certain clauses contained in the Nellimarla contract that any disputes should be referred to arbitration, should get incorporated in the contract between the parties or not. In a decision given by me, reported in Ramdayal Rameswarilal v. Chandra Narasimham1, after considering the decisions cited before me, I came to the conclusion that the terms of the contract of Nellimarla or Chittavalasa Jute Mill Company did get incorporated into the terms of that suit contract by reason of the fact that there was an agreement between the parties that those terms should be observed between them in case of a dispute and consequently I held that the matter was one that should be referred to arbitrations and that until such arbitration was complete, the parties were not entitled to go before a Court. Subsequent to my decision referred to above, a decision of the Calcutta High Court has been reported in Dwarkadas &38; Co. v. Daluram2. The Full Bench of the High Court at Calcutta appears to have agreed with the view I have taken in Ramdayal Rameswarilal v. Chandra Narasimham1. Further, it is brought to my notice that, subsequent to my decision, my learned brother, Raghava Rao, J., had occasion to consider a similar point raised in a civil revision petition and agreed with my view on the matter. That decision is still unreported and seems to have been given in a civil revision petition. The learned counsel for the respondent now brings to my notice that, subsequent to my decision as well as that of Rahgava Rao, J., my learned brother Panchapakesa Ayyar, J., has taken the opposite view; and his decision which is also unreported is said to have been made in C.R.P. Nos. 941, and 942 of 1949. The judgment is dated 20th February, 1951. In this judgment my learned brother seems to think that in order to make the parties become bound by the terms of the contract of Nellimarla or Chittavalasa Jute Mill Company, the said terms should be specifically brought home to the parties, otherwise, a party cannot be bound by the terms of which he has no knowledge. This appears to be the view taken by my learned brother on the facts of that case. He has further held that the mere clause in the contract under N.B. that the terms and conditions of the Nellimarla or Chittavalasa Jute Mill Company’s contract should be binding against the parties, could not be sufficient and there should be evidence to the effect that the party had specific knowledge of the terms of the contract which were sought to be brought into operation by virtue of the N.B. clause in the suit contract. But my learned brother has not discussed the various authorities which have been referred to in my decision or in the decision reported in Dwarkadas &38; Co. v. Daluram1. It also transpires that neither my decision nor that of Raghava Rao, J., has been brought to the notice of my learned brother Panchapakesa Ayyar, J. In this state of things, the learned counsel for the respondent would urge that since there is a conflict of views in regard to the real import and binding nature of a clause of the kind now in controversy, between the Judges of this High Court, it would be desirable that the conflict is set at rest by referring the matter to a Bench of this Court. Though the learned counsel for the petitioner would say that there is no need for such a reference to a Bench, still I think that once there has been a conflict in this Court between single Judges on the same point, it would be in the interests of all parties concerned that the matter should be argued before a Bench and a final decision arrived at as to what exactly should be the law applicable to such cases. In this view, I refe