( 1 ) THIS is an application by the plaintiffs whose application for the filing of an award has been dismissed by the Additional Civil and Sessions Judge of Banaras on appeal. It was alleged by the applicants that on 5th November 1943 an agreement was entered into by the parties for referring their disputes to arbitration, that accordingly the disputes were referred to arbitration, and that the arbitrators gave an award on 23rd January 1944. The applicants applied on 17th July 1944 for the filing of the award. The application was resisted by the defendants-opposite parties on the ground that there was no valid reference and that their signatures on the supposed reference were obtained fraudulently. The learned Munsif, in whose Court the application was filed, dismissed the objection of the opposite parties and passed a decree in terms of the award. The opposite parties filed an appeal from the decree in the Court of the learned Civil Judge who, holding that there was no valid agreement for reference, set aside the decree of the learned Munsif and dismissed the application.

( 2 ) THE only ground taken by the applicants before us is that no appeal lay in the Court of the le