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Judgment
The plaintiff brought a suit for partition. At the request of the parties the matter was referred to arbitration. An award was submitted, and the
Subordinate Judge, with slight modifications, passed a decree in terms of the award u/s 522, Civil Procedure Code. The 1st defendant appeals,
and the grounds of appeal pressed are that the award is void ab initio because notice was not given to one of the arbitrators, and invalid because
signed by only one of the arbitrators. The preliminary objection is taken that u/s 522, Civil Procedure Code, no appeal lies from the decree of the
Subordinate Judge except in so far as the decree is in excess of, or not in accordance with the award, and that as no such ground is pressed the
appeal must be dismissed. The case of the Chairman of the Purnea Municipality v. Siva Sankar Ram 33 C.v 899 supports this objection and we
agree with that decision which is based upon the ruling of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Ghulam Khan v. Muhammad Hussain 29
I.A. 151. It is suggested that the ruling of the Privy Council has been misunderstood and does not bar an appeal where it is alleged that there is no
valid award or that the award is void ab initio. The appeal before the Privy Council was against the decision of the Full Bench of the Chief Court of
the Punjab. In the judgment of the Pull Bench which is printed in extenso in the report, it was distinctly held that, although ""under the Code of 1859
it was competent to a party to object by way of appeal that what purported to be an award was no award, or had no legal existence as an award
ab initio,"" under the Code of 1882 such objections could not be taken. Referring to this judgment their Lordships of the Privy Council observed at
page 185 that they entirely concur in the decision that no appeal lay. From this we think it is clear that the decision of the Privy Council has been
correctly interpreted in Chairman of Purnea Municipality v. Siva Sankar Ram 33 C.J 899. In Indur Subbarami Reddi v. Kandadai Raja Mannar
Aiyangar 26 M.K47 it was held that an appeal lay on the ground that the award was void not with standing that the decree was in accordance with
what purported to be an award. The decision in Ghulam Khan v. Muhammad Hussain 29 I.A. 151 was not, however, referred to, and was
probably not brought to their notice as it was passed only two months before the hearing. Holding, therefore, that no appeal lies in this case, we
dismiss the appeal with costs.