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1916 Supreme(All) 132

ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT
PIGGOTT, WALSH, JJ.
Durga Baksh Singh & Ors. - Appellants
Versus
Fateh Bahadur Singh - Respondent
Decided On : 01-02-1916

JUDGMENT

Walsh, J. - In this case I have no doubt in my own mind as to what is the proper course for this Court to take. It is an application for revision of an order of the Court below, dated the 22nd December 1914, passing a decree in the terms of a certain award under paragraph 16 of the 2nd Schedule to the Code of Civil Procedure. To an award of this kind the law has given, for reasons which may be good or bad but which do not concern us, a right to either party to object. The award was filed in this particular case after some further time had been given on the 11th of December 1614. Notice was then given to the Vakil for the applicant that objections could be filed within ten days (the usual time) and that hearing of the objections would take place on the following day after the expiration of the ten days, that is, on the 22nd of December. That in my opinion gave the party a right) if he saw fit, to object to the award on any of the grounds under paragraph 15 of the 2nd \Schedule. He did in fact file objections to the award, which although not artistic in form included in substance at any rate an attack on the arbitrator on the ground of misconduct. This was a ground under paragraph 15. It, therefore, followed that the Court could not pass a decree without hearing the objector. On the day fixed for the hearing the applicant appeared but was not ready with his evidence. About that" there can be no possible doubt whatever, because he filed a long application asking the Court to grant him an adjournment for the purpose of enabling him to produce his evidence. Whether he had had ample time to get his evidence but had failed, whether there was some evidence there, such as the arbitrator himself who might have been put into the witness-box and examined as a preliminary to his attack, or whether it was a dishonest application merely to gain time I have no means of knowing. It is suggested by the respondents' Advocate that it was a dishonest application. It may have been so; but I cannot for myself find facts without materials upon which to base my decision. I, therefore, have to look at the judgment of the Court below. So far as the application for adjournment is concerned there is an order to be found in the order sheet showing that the learned Judge rejected it for reasons given in the judgment. I have looked at the judgment and it is right to say that the language of the judgment rather indicates that the learned Judge had in his mind some suspicion with regard to the application and with regard to the solidity of the grounds upon which it was based. He, however, unfortunately fails to deal with the adjournment at all. He gives no reason. It, therefore, stands plain on the face of the record that this application for adjournment was dismissed without giving any reasons. I am not prepared to say that even that was an irregularity if there was anything to show to this Court that he had dealt judicially with the application for adjournment, that he thought that it "was not a bona fide application, that he thought that the time of 10 days given for filing objections was ample for the applicant to prepare his case and that he had been guilty of neglect in not coming before the Court ready with his case. That would have been a decision with which, even if I thought it unsatisfactory, I could not have interfered. This order is not subject to an appeal and if the matter was dealt with judicially, however unsatisfactory the reasons may appear to this Court, this Court cannot overrule it. But there is nothing to show what was the real ground in the learned Judge's mind. I cannot sitting here assume without any evidence or a finding to guide me that the application was necessarily without bona fides. It, therefore, stands thus: On the record as it stands the application for adjournment was refused apparently for no reason. That in itself as I have stated above might not be sufficient; but in the substantial judgment by means of which the

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