JUDGEMENT

(The Judgement of the Court was delivered by R.N.Manjula,J.)

This Original Side Appeal has been filed seeking to set aside the Order in O.P.No.882 of 2018 dated 08.11.2018.

2. The Appellants were the petitioners in the Original Petition.

3. The origin of this litigation started from a contract entered into between the respondent and the petitioners/Corporation on 07.10.2010 for lifting the Civil Supplies stocks to various delivery points as per the instructions of the petitioners or their officials. As per the terms of the agreement, the respondent contractor should deposit a sum of Rs.2,00,000/- as security deposit and provide adequate number of lorries for the seamless transportation of stocks. It is alleged by the petitioners that the respondent omitted to take the goods from 07.10.2010 onwards. After issuing notice to the respondent, the first petitioner issued an Order dated 28.03.2011 for terminating his contract. Further, the first petitioner also blacklisted the respondent and forfeited the security deposit of Rs.2,00,000/-.

4. The respondent filed an Original Petition in this Court and got an order for appointment of an Arbitrator and the dispute was referred to the Arbitrator. After hearing both the parties the Arbitrator passed an Award on the following terms:-

1. The orders passed by the respondent -1 in his procs.M1/4585/2010 Dt.28.03.2011 are hereby ordered to be set aside.

2. The respondent-1 is directed to repay the Security Deposit of Rs.2,00,000/- (Two Lakhs) only to the claimant.

3. The claim of interest at 18% on the Security Deposit amount is ordered to be rejected.

4. Cost of Arbitration has to be shared by both parties on

50:50 basis.

5. The petitioners challenged the Award under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliaton Act before the learned single Judge by way of filing the Original Petition and the same was dismissed. Hence the petitioners have filed this Original Side Appeal by challenging the Order of the learned single Judge passed in the Original Petition.

6. Heard Ms.G.Ramapriya, learned counsel for the appellants and Mr.C.D.Sugumar, learned counsel for the respondent.

7. The learned counsel for the Appellants/petitioners submitted that the learned Arbitrator omitted to appreciate the materials on record in a proper perspective before finding fault with the petitioners that they have not issued the movement Orders in time in order to enable the respondent to carry the loads as instructed by them.

8. The contention of the learned counsel for the respondent is that he was unable to fulfill the terms of the contract only due to non-issuance of movement Order by the petitioners' office in time. He further submitted that at one point, he was asked to come in person to collect the movement Order, but due to some extraneous reason, it was not possible for him to go and collect it personally.

9. During the course of appreciating the facts relevant to these submissions, the learned Arbitrator has perused the records produced by both the parties and arrived at a finding that the movement Orders were not served on the respondent properly. While recording the said finding, the learned Arbitrator has also elaborated the various methods in which the movement Order could have been effectively served on the contractors and how it was omitted to be done by the Appellant office. The learned single Judge has observed that the Courts cannot interfere with the findings of the learned Arbitrator unless it is fundamentally unreasonable. The Courts have got limited scope to interfere with the reasons and findings given by the Arbitrator on the basis of interpreting the terms of the contract. Even if an another view of interpretation or understanding of the terms of the contract is possible, those views cannot be allowed to substitute the reasoned understanding and construction given by the learned Arbitrator, so long as those views of the Arbitrator is reasonable and based on the materials placed before him. Hence, th