Rankin, C.J:— In this case, an award was made on the 3rd of August, 1923, and it was filed in the High Court under the provisions of the Indian Arbitration Act on the 31st of August, 1923. There was an assignment on the part of the company in whose favour the award was made to the present respondents on the 15th of December, 1926. In January, 1927, the respondents filed a tabular statement and proceeded to issue notices in execution under rule 16 of Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure. These having been served, the matter came on for hearing before Mr. Justice Gregory on the 26th of April, 1927, and it was objected that the application in execution was time-barred, because Art. 181 of the First Schedule to the Limitation Act applied, there been, no other Article which applied. The learned Judge has held that Art. 183 of the Limitation Act is applicable and that is the question before us.
There can be no doubt that the terms of section 15 of the Arbitration Act do not mean that an award shall be or shall be deemed to be a decree and Mr. B.K Ghosh, on behalf of the respondents, concedes that completely. Indeed, it was clearly laid down by the Privy Council in the case of E.D Sassoon and Co. v. Ramdutt Ramkissen Das; and it has been laid down many times. The words of section 15 are these: “An award on a submission on being filed in the Court in accordance with the foregoing provisions, shall (unless the Court remits it to the reconsideration of the arbitrators or umpire or sets it aside) be enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court.” So, there can be no doubt that it is not only to be enforceable as if it were a decree in general, but, having been filed in a particular Court it is to be enforceable as if it were a decree of that Court.
Now, we have been pressed to hold that this provision refers only to the procedure or manner in which an award is to be enforced by execution; and with reference to the case In re A Bankruptcy Notice, it is important to observe, that section 12 of the English Arbitration Act, 1889, states in express terms “An award on a submission may, by leave of the Court or a Judge, be enforced in the same manner as a judgment or order to the same effect”. Under the wording of the English section, it seems to me to be reasonably clear that there could be no successful contention that the 12th section of the Act of 1889 is addressed in any way to a question of limitation. It is important to notice that the draftsman of the Indian Statute, having the language of the English Statute before him, has expressed himself much more widely. The words are “be enforceable as if it were a decree of the Court.” It is quite true that, even so, it is by no means clear whether the language used in section 15 is intended to be taken not only as regards manner in the largest sense of that word, but also as regards time for the purposes of limitation. It has been pointed out to us that similar wide language is to be found in section 42 of the Code of Civil Procedure where it says that “the Court executing a decree sent to it shall have the same powers in executing such decree as if it had been passed by itself”. Now, in India, we know that the period of limitation is one thing for a decree passed by a mofussil Court and another thing for a decree passed by a Chartered High Court. It is to be observed with reference to section 42 that the section deals with powers of the Court executing it and only with those powers. So that there cannot be very much doubt that the question of limitation is excluded from the purview of that section. The question of limitation is not merely a question of power. The matter is one of very great importance and it is, I think, to be noticed not merely that the Indian Statute uses wider language than the English Statute, but it makes no special provision for limitation. It seems to me, in these circumstances, that, if one looks at the question of limitation from the point of view of the different alternatives, there can be one inference only, and that is that the words-employed by the Legislature in the first sub-section of section 15 of the Indian Arbitration Act were intended to go to the question of limitation as well as to the question of procedure. The Court has been reminded that questions of limitation are regarded for purposes of International Law as questions of procedure.
For the decrees of Civil Courts other than Chartered High Courts the provisions of the Limitation Act are very elaborate. There are provisions whereby, within the time limited by section 48 of the Code, applications in execution can be made so long as they are made within three years of each other; and in the same way with regard to decrees of Chartered High Courts not only is there a limit of twelve years but there are elaborate arrangements for the extension of that period by payment of interest, acknowledgment and so forth. It is further to be observed that, on the question of limitation under Art. 182, there are elaborate arrangements for dealing with the case where the decree has been passed against more persons than one, and one of these persons is in a different position to the others. Now, we have to consider the construction of section 15 of the Indian Arbitration Act with a view to choose between two alternatives. One is the view that an award for purposes of limitations will be governed by Art. 182 or 183 according as it is filed in a Chartered High Court or not, and the other is the view that whatever happens to an award it can only be enforceable within a period of three years prescribed by Art. 181 for applications for which no period of limitation is provided elsewhere in this schedule or by section 48 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It seems to me, looking at the absence of all provision in the Indian Limitation Act with reference to limitation, looking to the fact that the language of the English Act has been deliberately widened and to the fact that the question of time-limit for execution is a question of enforceability of the decree, as Art. 183 itself shows, that the correct view is that section 15 does cover the question of time within which the execution of a decree may be had. I, therefore, think that in this case the period of limitation is twelve years. This decision is in accordance with the view taken by a single Judge, Mr. Justice Harrison of the Lahore High Court, in the case of Pokhar Das v. Radha Kishen.
In this view the appeal fails and must be dismissed with costs.
This judgment governs Appeal No. 65 of 1927, which is also dismissed with costs.
Mitter, J.:— I agree.
Attorney for the appellant: G. Bagaria.
Attorney for the respondents: F.D Himatsingka.
S.M
Appeal dismissed.