A court has inherent powers to remove an arbitrator on grounds of bias, even before the proceeding has concluded, in the interests of justice and fair play.

R. N. MISRA, J.

( 1 ) THESE are six applications under Section 115, Civil P. C. at the instance of the state of Orissa and one of its employee engineers for removal of an appointed arbitrator by quashing the order of the learned trial Judge.

( 2 ) THE short facts relevant for the purposes of the revisions may be stated. The state Government of Orissa and the opposite party entered into contracts for execution of works. Such contracts had an arbitration Clause in the event of disputes arising in relation to the contracts. Disputes arose and the opposite party contractor wanted an arbitrator to be appointed for resolving such disputes. As no steps were taken in spite of demands of the contractor, the matter ultimately came before the court and the learned Subordinate Judge appointed Sri N. K. Misra, a retired Superintending Engineer, as the sole arbitrator. The State came before this court challenging such appointment mainly on the ground that Sri Misra was a retired employee of the State and the arbitration clause contemplated an engineer in the employment of the State. This Court did not entertain the objection of the State and Sri Misra's appointment stood affirmed. Soon after an application was made in the trial Court for removal of Sri Misra from acting as arbitrator on the ground that Sri Misra had been convict" ed for an offence under the Essential Commodities Act read with Clause 15 (3) of the Iron and Steel Control Order, 1956 wherein he was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/- and in lieu thereof to undergo S. I. for six months. The matter was in appeal before this Court and is said to be still pending. It was further alleged that sri Misra was also charged for an offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act and was undergoing trial before the Special Judge. Puri for having committed an offence punishable under Section 5 (2) read with S. 5 (1) of that Act. It was contended on the aforesaid footing that Sri Misra was bound to have bias against the State of Orissa which was the real prosecutor in the two cases and as such it was not in the Interests of justice and fair play that such a person should be allowed to act as arbitrator. The learned trial Judge repelled the contention by saying that this was not one of the grounds available under Section 11 of the arbitration Act-He also emphasised upon the fact that the conviction which is referred to above was prior to disposal of the revision which came before this court -- the conviction is dated 11-1-1971 and the civil revision was disposed of on 8-3-1971 --the State of Orissa having not raised objection on that score before this Court was not entitled to use that again as a ground for removal of Sri Misra from, functioning as the arbitrator. There are several contracts and as such there are several disputes. That situation has given rise to these six cases.

( 3 ) THERE is no dispute that Sri Misra has been convicted in the manner alleged and that there is a prosecution pending against him for the offence indicated above. There is also no dispute that the State of Orissa is the prosecutor. Where the arbitrator is litigating with, one of the parties to the arbitration proceeding, there would be no room for doubt that the arbitrator would have bias against his adversary whose dispute he has to arbitrate upon. In such situation the arbitrator cannot be allowed to function because he would have naturally some bias. The state, it is true, is not an individual and has not the feelings and reactions of an ordinary litigant. But such a situation does not really make much of difference because the arbitrator who is an individual is bound to react against his prosecutor and is likely to have a bias against it. It is not for the court, when moved for removal of an arbitrator on grounds of bias, to find out whether there has been actual bias already expressed in some overt act of the arbitrator. The possibility of bias must be taken as sufficient there can be no doubt that dis