JUDGMENT

Kanhaiya Lal, J. - This is an application in revision against an award which has been accepted by the court below in a suit pending before it. On the date of the hearing of that suit, the pleaders for the parties stated that they had agreed to arbitration and wanted to refer the matter in dispute to a certain pleader named by them for decision. Their statements were recorded by the court and a reference was made in accordance with their agreement. The arbitrator made an award, to which certain objections were taken by the defendants; but they did not there state that the reference was invalid because it was not in writing, or that they had not authorized their pleaders to make it. In fact the valcalatnama filed by the applicant in the court below expressly authorized the pleader concerned to enter into an agreement of arbitration. An objection is now taken that under paragraph 1 of the second schedule attached to the Code of Civil Procedure, the agreement ought to have been in writing, but a record taken down of an oral statement made by the parties or their pleaders is as much an agreement in writing as a written application made by the parties or their pleaders themselves. The personality of the writer makes no difference. In Shama Sundram Iyer v. Abdul Latif ILR (1899) Cal. 61, and Abdul Humid v. Riaz-ud-din ILR (1907) All. 32, it was accordingly held that where both the parties to a pending suit consented to a reference to arbitration and an order of reference was then and there made by the court in the presence of the parties, though not upon a written application, it was not open to the court to supersede that reference. An award is not invalid' merely because an application for an order of reference is not made in writing. In Umed Singh v. Seth Sobhag Mal Dhadha ILR (1915) Cal. 290, their Lordships of the Privy Council held that where a guardian ad litem of a minor party was in court and had assented to the application for reference to arbitration, the omission of the guardian to sign the application was immaterial. The application, therefore, fails and is rejected.