Order
1. None appears on behalf of the respondent.
2. The appellant is a public sector undertaking incorporated under the Indian Companies Act. It appears that the appellant herein issued several work orders to the respondent herein for construction of 32 units NHS (D/S) quarters at Rajpura Colliery, Kapasara, Bihar (now in the State of Jharkhand). As a result thereof, an agreement was executed between the appellant and the respondent. It appears that certain disputes arose as regards the payment for the work done by the respondent. Under such circumstances, the respondent by letter dated 1-6-1990 sought reference of dispute to the arbitrator. On 5-9-1990, the Chief Engineer rejected the request of the respondent for arbitration. Thereafter, the respondent in September 1990 filed a petition under Section 20 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act”). A learned Single Judge of the Calcutta High Court appointed an advocate as an arbitrator to adjudicate upon the dispute between the appellant and the respondent. Aggrieved, the appellant filed a letters patent appeal before a Division Bench of the High Court.
3. The appeal court disposed of the appeal stating that:
“It is submitted by the learned advocate for the respondent that he does not oppose the prayer of the appellant in appointing named arbitrator in the agreement i.e the Chairman and/or Managing Director of Eastern Coalfields Ltd. It appears that by order dated 1-10-1993 the learned trial Judge appointed Mr Shyam Sunder Dutt, Advocate as arbitrator.
In view of the submissions made by the respondent who was the petitioner before the trial court, the appeal is allowed. The order dated 1-10-1993 is set aside and the Chairman/Managing Director of Eastern Coalfields Ltd. is directed to nominate an arbitrator to hear the disputes between the parties. The Chairman will nominate an arbitrator within two weeks from the date of service within 4 weeks from his date of appointment and will make and publish his award within 4 months from the date of entering upon reference.”
4. Aggrieved the appellant is in appeal before us.
5. Learned counsel appearing for the appellant urged that in fact the petition filed by the respondent under Section 20 of the Arbitration Act was barred by limitation. Learned counsel urged that under Article 137 of the Limitation Act the petition under Section 20 could be filed within three years from the date when the cause of action arose. In this case we find that finally the Chief Engineer rejected the request of the respondent to refer the matter to arbitration by letter dated 5-9-1990 and the petition was filed in September 1993 which was well within the period of limitation. We, therefore, reject this argument.
6. Learned counsel then urged that the appellant at no point of time gave any statement before the Court that instead of an advocate arbitrator the Managing Director be directed to appoint the arbitrator and in fact there was no dispute which could have been referred by the Managing Director to the arbitrator. We do not find any merit in this contention.
7. The tenor of the order of the appeal court as set out hereinbefore is indicative of the fact that the only objection which was raised before it by the learned counsel for the appellant was that the learned Single Judge was not correct in appointing an advocate as an arbitrator in view of the fact that in terms of the arbitration agreement it is for the Managing Director of the company to nominate an arbitrator. As the respondent agreed to the nomination of an arbitrator by the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of the appellant Company, the Division Bench of the High Court passed the aforementioned order.
8. Mr Ajit Kumar Sinha, learned counsel appearing for the appellant would urge that from the memo of appeal filed before the High Court, it would appear that not only the question of nomination but also the grounds to the effect that the application under Section 20 of the Act was barred by the limitation and furthermore, the respondent having accepted the payments under the final bill was estopped from raising a claim; were also taken. It is well known that in view of several decisions of this Court, this Court would look to only the judgment of the High Court (see Roop Kumar v. Mohan Thedani (2003) 6 SCC 595, (2003) 3 Scale 611). A party to a lis may raise several contentions in the petition on the grounds of appeal but would confine his argument only to one question. In the event, some other questions had been raised before the High Court which had not been dealt with by it, it is open to the party to file an application for review. In the instant case, the appeal was disposed of at an interlocutory stage by treating the appeal on day's list. It is, therefore, inconceivable that the learned Judges would not notice the arguments of the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant.
9. If the appellant was aggrieved against the statement of fact contained in the judgment, it was open to him to file a review before the High Court which he did not propose to do. Under such circumstances, we are not disposed to entertain this argument of the learned counsel for the appellant.
10. We, therefore, do not find any merit in the appeal and it is, accordingly, dismissed.
11. There shall be no order as to costs.