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Judgment
Paramjeet Singh, J.—By this common order, all the aforementioned civil revisions are being disposed of together as common question of facts and law are involved in all the petitions. For brevity, the facts are being taken up from Civil Revision No. 6299 of 2012.
Instant civil revision has been filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India for setting aside the order dated 08.09.2012 (Annexure P-1) whereby application u/s 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (in-short "the Act") moved by the petitioner has been dismissed being time barred.
Shorn of unnecessary details, the facts relevant for disposal of present petition are to the effect that the arbitrator passed the award on 28.01.2009 and the petitioner after obtaining a copy of the said award filed an application u/s 34 of the Act on 02.05.2009. The petitioner also filed application for extension of time and condonation of delay, if any. It was specifically mentioned in the application that the Arbitrator failed to supply the signed copy of the award to the petitioner. The respondent filed reply to the application and also moved two additional applications whereby it was prayed that issue regarding maintainability of the application for condonation of delay may be decided as preliminary issue and second application was for dismissal/rejection/return of the petition for lack of jurisdiction. Vide impugned order dated 08.09.2012, the trial Court dismissed the application u/s 34 of the Act moved by the petitioner, being time barred. Hence, this revision petition.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.
It is the case of the petitioner that notice of arbitration was not served upon him and he was not sent the copy of arbitral award. The petitioner came to know about the said award few weeks before filing of the application u/s 34 of the Act. Learned counsel for the petitioner has relied upon judgment of this Court Tez. Kaur v. Union of India and others, Civil Revision No. 4828 of 2012, decided on 16.09.2013, to contend that period of limitation for filing the application u/s 34 of the Act commences from the date when the award comes in the knowledge of the party.
As per Section 34(3) of the Act, an application for setting aside may not be made after three months have elapsed from the date on which the party making that application had received the arbitral award or, if a request had been made u/s 33, from the date on which that request had been disposed of by the arbitral tribunal. Learned Additional District Judge, Hoshiarpur has dismissed the application of the petitioner being time barred holding that application for condonation of delay is not maintainable as Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 is not applicable to an application u/s 34 of the Act.
There is no dispute to the proposition of law that Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 does not apply to the application u/s 34 of the Act. However for computing the period of limitation u/s 34(3) of the Act, the relevant date is the date of acquiring knowledge of the award.
In Tez Kaur (supra), it has been held as under:
In this case, plaintiffs averment regarding her knowledge was not shown to be wrong or false. The date of the award as the starting period of limitation must always be taken as date of knowledge of the award. There existed no delay and the Court was bound to entertain the petition and proceed to dispose of the case in accordance with law.
The impugned order is set aside: The petition is ordered to be taken on file and the matter be disposed of in accordance with law.
Revision petition is allowed.
Since in the instant case, the petitioner filed the application within few weeks of coming to know about the said award, his application cannot be said to be time barred. In view of above, the instant petition is allowed and the impugned order dated 08.09.2012 is set aside. The application u/s 34 of the Act moved by the petitioner is restored to its original number.