A Dispute arose between the parties and matter was referred to arbitration. Due to some reasons, arbitration proceedings were not concluded. Respondent filed application before High Court seeking removal of the arbitrator. High Court directed appellant to appoint a new arbitrator and further directed the arbitrator so appointed to conclude the arbitration proceedings within six months. After the expiry of six months, both the parties extended the time to conclude arbitration. The arbitrator failed to publish the award within the extended time. Respondent filed application before High Court for a declaration that the mandate of the arbitrator stood terminated. A perusal of arbitration agreement revealed that the arbitrator had power to enlarge the time to make and publish the award by mutual consent of the parties. Therefore, without the consent of both the parties to the dispute, arbitrator had no power to further extent the time beyond that which is fixed. It is an admitted position that the respondent did not give any consent for extension of time. Thus, the arbitrator had no power to further enlarge the time to make and publish the award and therefore his mandate had automatically terminated after the expiry of the time fixed by the parties to conclude the proceedings. Arbitration is an efficacious and alternative way of dispute resolution between the parties. There is no denying the fact that the method of arbitration has evolved over the period of time to help the parties to speedily resolve their disputes through this process and in fact the Arbitration and Conciliation Act recognized this aspect and has elaborate provisions to cater the needs of speedy disposal of disputes. The present case illustrates that in spite of adopting this efficacious way of resolving the disputes between the parties through the arbitration process lingered on for a considerable length of time which defeated the notion of the whole process of resolving the disputes through arbitration. The contention of the appellant therefore cannot be justified that since the dispute was highly technical in nature, it had to be dealt with elaborately by the arbitrator and that he was justified in being late. High Court correctly fixed the time for the arbitration to be concluded within a period of six months from the appointment of the fourth arbitrator considering the time that was spent for the arbitration process prior to his appointment, being a technical and complex issue. Even assuming that the arbitration process involved highly technical and complex issues, which was time consuming, even then, it was open for the arbitrator or for the parties to approach the Court for extension of time to conclude the arbitration proceeding which was not done either by the arbitrator or by any of the parties. As correctly noted by High Court in its impugned judgment, there was no cogent reason for the delay in making and publishing the award by the arbitrator. He already had the relevant materials at his disposal and could base his findings on the observations made by the three arbitrators who were appointed prior to him. It has been correctly observed by the High Court that the arbitrator had become functus officio in the absence of extension of time beyond 30th of September, 2005 to make and publish the award. After the said date, the arbitrator had no authority to continue with the arbitration proceedings. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant argued that in the absence of any statutory period prescribed under the Act for rendering an award, the direction of the Court to conclude the arbitration proceedings within the time prescribed by it, would not make an award passed beyond the time so prescribed, null and void. He further argued that the High Court was wrong in not extending the time fixed by it in the order, for early conclusion of the arbitration proceedings and terminating the mandate of the arbitrator when neither the Act nor the arbitration agreement prescribed any time for making and publishing the award. So far as this decision is concerned, we may keep it on record that this decision was rendered under the Arbitration Act of 1940 and not under the present act with which we are only concerned. In view of our reasoning given hereinafter and in view of the facts involved in this case, we do not find any ground to rely on this decision of this Court for the purpose of this case. We have carefully gone-through para 8 of the decision relied on by the learned counsel for the appellants. We may not forget that we are concerned in this case with the Arbitration Act, 1894. Without going into the details of this decision, we may simply say that this decision cannot have any direct application. (800 words)
