JUDGMENT

Piggott, J. - This is an application in revision by one Ajudhia Prasad, who was one of the twenty-one defendants impleaded in a certain suit in which the plaintiff claimed a sum of money by way of damages. A number of defendants, including Ajudhia Prasad, joined with the plaintiff in petitioning the court to refer the entire matter in dispute to the decision of a certain arbitrator. On receiving this application the court seems to have examined the array of parties. It found that there were two contesting defendants who had not joined in the application; but in respect of these the plaintiff abandoned his claim, so that they undoubtedly ceased to be parties interested in the suit. There were three other defendants, Nos. 5, 18 and 19, who also had not joined in the agreement to refer to arbitration. With reference to these three defendants the court made a note to the effect that they had never entered any appearance in the suit and that an order had already been passed that the trial of the suit should proceed ex parte as against them. Thereupon the court passed an order of reference under paragraph 3 of the second schedule to the Code of Civil Procedure. The arbitrator dealt with the matter under the authority conferred upon him by this order of reference and delivered an award for a certain sum of money against Ajudhia Prasad alone, exempting all the remaining defendants. Objections were taken to this award, and, amongst others, a point was taken that, inasmuch as all the parties interested in the suit had rut agreed that the matter in difference between them should be referred to arbitration, the order of reference was bad and all proceedings thereunder null and void. The learned Judge of the court below proceeded to deal with this objection. He considered that the point was covered by a decision of this Court in Pitam Mal v. Sadiq Ali ILR (1902) All. 229 and accordingly overruled the objection. He alto overruled all the other objections taken to the award and pronounced judgement accordingly, A decree in favour of the plaintiff in accordance with the terms of the award necessarily followed. Ajudhia Prasad has brought the matter in revision before this Court. One of the pleas taken by him seeks to raise a point which was not taken at all in the court below, namely, that the award went beyond the terms of the reference. I should not in any case have allowed the applicant to raise this point when he had omitted to take it in the court below, but as a matter of fact there is no force in it. I am satisfied that the award did not go beyond the terms of the order of reference. The other point taken is that already referred to as having been considered and overruled by the court below. On the question whether there can be a valid reference to arbitration upon an agreement entered into between the plaintiff and the contesting defendants in any suit, when certain other defendants, who had entered no appearance, and against whom the trial of the suit was proceeding ex parte, have not joined in the application to refer to arbitration, the course of decision in this Court appears by no means uniform. The case relied upon by the learned Munsif is certainly in favour of the view which he has taken. That case was distinguished against, but upon a somewhat different state of facts, in Kadhu Singh v. Baljit Singh ILR (1907) All. 423. In another case, that of Negi Puran v. Him Singh (1909) 6 A.L.J. 333 the proceedings of the trial court had been marked by so many irregularities that it is not easy to say upon what point in particular the decree, which purported to have been passed in accordance with an arbitration award, was set aside. Finally, in Ishar Das v. Keshab Deo ILR (1910) All. 657 the older decision in Pitam, Mal v. Sadiq Ali (1902) All. 229 was re-affirmed and acted upon in circumstances quite undistinguishable in principle from those of the case cow before me. I find, however, that the authority of this decision has undou