An award passed by an Arbitral Tribunal is treated as a decree for execution under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, but there is no provision for transmission of awards. The execution is expected to be filed in the court which passed the decree, and transmission is only necessary in specific circumstances.

1. The civil revision petition arises out of a docket order passed by the X Assistant Judge, City Civil Court, Chennai, in an unnumbered execution petition, calling upon the petitioner to get the arbitration award secured by them, transmitted from the appropriate Court, so as to enable the X Assistant Judge, to entertain the execution petition.

2. Heard Mr.S.Saravanan, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr.K.Rajendra Prasad, learned counsel for the respondent.

3. The respondent holds a credit card issued by the petitioner herein. On the ground that certain amounts are due from the respondent, the petitioner raised a dispute and the same was referred to arbitration before a sole Arbitrator nominated by the petitioner at Mumbai. The respondent was set exparte and an award was passed by the Arbitrator on 29.01.2010.

4. Thereafter, the petitioner filed an execution petition before the X Assistant Judge, City Civil Court, Chennai, for executing the award, in view of the fact that the respondent resides within the jurisdiction of this Court. But, the said execution petition was returned by the X Assistant Judge, City Civil Court, calling upon the petitioner to explain as to how the execution petition is maintainable, without being transmitted through proper channel. Though the petitioner explained that there is no question of transmission and though the contention of the petitioner is supported by the decisions of the High Courts of Bombay and Delhi, the executing Court posted the matter before Court for maintainability and thereafter, passed an order holding that as per the judgment of the Karnataka High Court, an arbitral award is a decree and that orders of transmission were necessary. Therefore, the petitioner/award holder is before this Court.

5. It appears that there has been a great deal of confusion about the question of transmission of awards. It has come to light that hundreds of execution petitions are filed in various Courts in the State, with a request to transfer them to other Courts for execution. Even the original side of this court is no exception to this malady. The statistics on the original side of this Court reveal that a total of about 2362 execution petitions were filed between January to June 2011, only with a request to transmit the awards to various other Courts, either within the State or outside the State, for execution. Interestingly, the total number of execution petitions filed in the Original Side of this Court seeking the actual execution of the decrees passed by this Court are only 39 in number (for the entire period from January to June 2011). But, the number of execution petitions filed with a prayer for transmission of the awards were 2362. The statistics is extracted as follows:

Months Total E.Ps Transmit E.Ps. Other E.Ps.

January 497 484 13

February 589 578 11

March 424 418 6

April 278 274 4

May 66 66 --

June 547 542 5

Total 2401 2362 39

6. It appears that the practice of filing execution petitions (arising out of arbitral awards) in one court and seeking their transmission to other courts, has caught up with the community of lawyers, on account of a misconception that the court within whose jurisdiction the Arbitral proceedings took place and the award passed, is the court which passed the decree. If the arbitral proceedings had taken place in Chennai and the judgment debtor resides or carries on business in Bangalore, the execution is laid in the court at Chennai with a request to transmit it to Bangalore, on a misconception that the Chennai court is to be taken to be the court which passed the decree. But there is no basis in law for such a presumption. Therefore, it is high time the controversy is to be put to rest. To do so, it is necessary to have a detailed analysis of the provisions relating to execution contained in the Civil Procedure Code and the provisions relating to execution contained in the Arbitration Act, 1940, and the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

7. Section 3