An arbitrator who acts in manifest disregard of the contract acts without jurisdiction. His authority is derived from a specialised branch of the law of agency. He commits misconduct if by his award, he decides matters excluded by the agreement. A deliberate department from contract amounts to not only manifest disregard of his authority or a misconduct on his part, but it may tantamount to mala fide action.

MISHRA, J.

1. Three appeals OSA. Nos. 48 and 191 of 1988 and 16 of 1989 and CMP. No. 14742 of 1991 were disposed of by a common judgment by a Bench of this Court dated 13.11.1991 (since reported in 1992-2-L.W. 345) holding that the award in question cannot be made a rule of the Court unless registered as required under S. 17 of the Indian Registration Act, 1908, as according to the Court the award purportedly divided amongst the parties to the reference to the arbitrators immovable properties which did not constitute the properties of the partnership which they intended to divide. The Court accordingly found the judgment of the trial Court not sustainable, but recorded clearly that there were several arguments advanced on behalf of the parties as to the validity or otherwise of the award including the alleged legal misconduct of the arbitrators and the arbitrators going beyond the arbitration agreement and thus allegedly acting without jurisdiction, which points the Courts felt, were not necessary to decide. It seems that the said judgment was subjected to an appeal with special leave in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has, however, recorded that the conclusion of the Division Bench of this Court, that the allotments are exclusive to the partners and they got independent rights of their own under the award in the properties allotted under the schedule and hence, it is not a case purely of an assignment of the shares in the partnership, but it confers exclusive rights to the allottees and that the award also partitions certain immovable properties owned by the disputants, is based on an erroneous reading of the award(since reported in 1993-1-L.W. 612). The Supreme Court has recorded in its reading the award, that on settlement of accounts the residue is required to be divided among the partners in proportion in which they were entitled to share the profits, the properties have been allocated to the partners as falling to their shares on the distribution of the residue and a mere statement that certain properties were to exclusively belong to one partner or the other as the case may be, cannot change the character of the document or the nature of the assignment because that would, in any case, be the effect on the distribution of the residue . The Supreme Court has, however, remitted the matter to the Division Bench for answering the other contentions which arose in the appeal before it, but which were not decided in view of the decision on the question of registration of the award and also observed.

“We also make it clear that the award which is pending for registration may be registered by the Sub-Registrar

“We also make it clear that the award which is pending for registration may be registered by the Sub-Registrar notwithstanding the objection raised by one of the partners, S.V. Sivalinga Nadar through his lawyer, if that is the only reason for withholding registration.”

Notwithstanding, however, the above finding in respect of the character of the award as held by the Supreme Court, there has been some arguments before us to show that the Supreme Court was not informed of such properties and the divisions which admittedly did not belong to the partnership, but nonetheless were included in the award and as far the observations of the Supreme Court also, according to the learned counsel for the appellants, it cannot be concluded only on the basis of the above reading of the award without being fully informed that there is no division between the members of the joint family of the said immovable properties which are not assigned on the adjustment of the residue after partitioning of the shares in the partnership. We have, however, felt no need to go into this question and allowed time to the parties to complete the pending registration. We are informed that the award has since been registered.

2. The factual matrix in sum, six brothers S.V. Sivalinga Nadar, S.V. Harikrishnan, S.V. Chandrapandian, S.V. Kasilingam, S.