The repeal of a statutory provision does not affect the accrued rights of the parties, and the restoration of the right to sue is dependent on the impossibility of further arbitration proceedings.

Wallis, C.J.

1. The answer to the Full Bench reference being against him, Mr. Kuppusami Aiyar for the appellant has relied on another of the grounds taken here and in the lower Appellate Court, that time did not run between the 8th March, 1906 the date of the reference to arbitration and 31st October 1910, when it is alleged the arbitration proceedings came to an end by the death of the arbitrator. Section 21 of the Specific Relief Act provided that "if any person who has made such a contract (to refer to arbitration) and has refused to perform it, sues in respect of any subject which he has contracted to refer, the existence of such a contract shall bar the suit." As to this I agree with Richards, J., one of the referring Judges in Ram Kumar Singh v. Jagmohan Singh (1910) I.L.R. 33 A. 315 that the institution of a suit after the contract to refer is sufficient refusal to perform such a contract to bar the suit under the section. The result of this provision when it was in force was, it seems to me, to bar the plaintiffs right to sue for dissolution of partnership so long as the arbitration had not broken down or the other side had not refused to go on with it. If the arbitration had become impossible as by the death of the arbitrator or the other side had refused to go on with it, Section 21 would have ceased to operate as a bar to the plaintiff. The question then is, what is the effect to be attributed to the removal of this statutory bar by the repeal of this provision of Section 21 by Section 22 of the second schedule of the Code of Civil Procedure of 1908. The effect of the provision while it was in force, was to confer upon the other parties to the contract a right to have the question decided by arbitration and not by suit, and this was a substantive right of an important character. This being so, the repeal of this provision of Section 21 by the Civil Procedure Code of 1908 did not affect the right of the other parties to the contract which had accrued under it (General Clauses Act 1897, Section 6 (c),) and consequently if the plaintiff had brought the present suit immediately on the coming into force of the Code he would still have been liable to be met by a plea founded on the repealed provision, and it was only when by the death of the arbitrator in 1910 further proceedings in the arbitration became impossible that the plaintiffs right to sue was restored to him. It is I think clear that the special provision in Section 21 prevented time running against the plaintiffs under the Limitation Act while it was in force and whether the effect of this provision was merely to suspend the running of time under the Limitation Act, or to take the case out of the Article and bring it under Article 120, in either case, the suit would be within time. I may say however that I do not think that the Judicial Committee should be considered in Nrityamoni Dassi v. Lakhan Chandra Sen (1916) I.L.R. 43 C. 660 : 30 M.L.J. 529 to have departed from the view clearly expressed in Lala Soni Ram v. Kanhaiya Lal (1913) L.R. 40 I.A. 74 : 25 M.L.J. 131. We allow the appeal, reverse the decrees of the Lower Court and remand the case for disposal according to law. Costs incurred hitherto to abide

Seshagiri Aiyar, J.

2. The points raised by Mr. Kuppusami Aiyar on this second occasion are by no means easy of solution. Upon one point my mind is clear. The parties referred the matters in dispute to arbitration before the new Code of Civil Procedure came into force. At that time the rights of the parties were regulated by Section 21 of the Specific Belief Act. That section says that the existence of a contract to refer "shall bar the suit." Mr. Muthiah Mudaliars ingenious argument that the bar affects only the agreement to refer and not a pending reference is obviously untenable. As I read the section a right is, conferred on one of the parties to a contract to prevent the other from enforcing his rights other than through the tribunal chosen by the