1. ' Kh. Habib Joo, the plaintiff-respondent brought a suit for rendition of the accounts against the defendant in the Court of Sub-Judge, Muzaffarabad. A contract of carriage of logs consisting of timber of different types was obtained by the plaintiff from the defendant at different rates according to the distance indicted in the terms of the contract. It was on some preliminary issues decided against the petitioner-defendant that revision was lodged by him and which was going on when through the intervention of this Court parties entered into an arbitration agreement to settle their dispute through arbitration. At first one Ch. Fazal Hussain was appointed as an Arbitrator who after lapse of a considerable time expressed his inability to do the arbitration and then as Agreed upon by the parties Mr. Abdul Majid Salaria, a Secretary of the Government was appointed Arbitrator to whom the record of the case was accordingly sent for arbitration by order dated 7th August, 1974. The term of reference to the arbitrator is as follows :- "Whether in connection with the business of forest between the parties, any amount is payable and who is the party entitled to receive the amount payable and how much?"
2. ' After trial of the issue and hearing the, parties the learned Arbitrator gave his award dated 29th December, 1974 which was received in the Court on the same day. Both the parties before the Court desired to file objections against the award given by the learned Arbitrator. The counsel for the petitioner filed his objection under section 30 of the Arbitration Act whereas the counsel for the plaintiff-respondent filed his objections presumably under section 15 of the Act. Before we take up the objections filed by the parties, it will be appropriate for the sake of the convenience in regard to the appreciation of the objections raised to reproduce below the relevant portions of the sections concerned: "Section I5.-(b) Where the award is imperfect in form, or contains any obvious error which can be amended without affecting such decision ; or
(c) Where the award contains a clerical mistake or an error arising from an accidental slip or omission."
3. "Section 30.-(a) that an arbitrator or umpire has misconducted himself or the proceedings."
4. ' The petitioner has raised the objections to the following effect :- "(1) That the Arbitrator has misconducted the proceedings and therefore the award is liable to be set aside.
(2) That the Arbitrator has committed procedural irregularities as well on which account also the award is liable to be set aside.
(3) That the Arbitrator has given no reasons to disbelieve the statement of the defendant.
(4) That the Arbitrator has not taken account of certain documents forming part of the record and produced by the plaintiff himself.
(5) That the Arbitrator has arrived at a wrong conclusion having ignored the implications of Exhs. P A and P B.
(6) That the Arbitrator has erred in basing his findings on Exh. P A which in fact is not the basis on which the Arbitrator had to decide the liability which he has placed on the shoulders of the defendant.
(7) That the Arbitrator has erred in coming to a different conclusion in spite of the fact of the acceptance of the correctness of Exh. D. E.
(8) That the Arbitrator has as such ignored the fact that the plaintiff has not only contradicted himself but failed to prove the issue the burden of proof was placed on him and yet has accepted the statement of the plaintiff uncorroborated and made the same as the basis of calculating' the liabilities.
(9) That the Arbitrator has referred to the arguments of the learned counsel of the plaintiff in rejecting the certain receipts, the correctness of which were neither disputed nor denied by the plaintiff while making his oral or written statement. The Arbitrator has not thus given any reason for not having accounted for the amount of such receipts and has altogether ignored them.
5. (10)That the Arbitrator has ignored Exh. D-I which would have clarified the rate for 1967 and has also wrongly calculated the rate for 1968. The Arbitrator while ignoring Exh. D-I has misconducted the proceedings and failed to appreciate the visible contradiction.
6. (11)That the Arbitrator has wrongly calculated the volume of timber launched/transported by the plaintiff for the whole period and thereby illegally burdened the defendant.
(12) That the Arbitrator has not awarded the damages suffered by the defendant on account of the failure of performance of the conditions of the agreement by the plaintiff which fact was explained and the damages claimed by the defendant and as such the Arbitrator has also misconducted the proceedings."
7. ' Before looking at the objections put in by the petitioner, it is to be noted that it is now very well settled that the Arbitrator is a Judge of both questions of fact and law and so a party cannot be allowed to show that A his decision is wrong on merits of the case. The Court is not supposed to sit in judgment on the award of the Arbitrator. In view of the above observation recognized by the Courts of law, the objections put in by the petitioner against the award are evidently the questions of fact and there is nothing of misconduct in them. The rates taken into consideration by the Arbitrator for calculation purposes exist very much on record, and some variance occurring therein was very well discussed, that is to say that it was with reasons that the rates per Cft. For the volume of work done by the contractor were accounted for.
8. ' Although it is not for this Court to weigh the evidence holding that any wrong conclusion was drawn by the Arbitrator, yet there is nothing to indicate that any of the findings was wrongly arrived at by the learned Arbitrator. The award is not to be set aside unless one or more grounds described in section 30 of the Act are carved. Only ground No, 1 mentioned therein was pleaded by the petitioner but that is not established in any way on the very face of the objections to the award taken by him. The petitioner is wrong to say that the statement of the defendant was not considered by the Arbitrator. It was after the due consideration of the case, as a whole, that the award was made by the learned Arbitrator and as such it cannot be said that the statement of the defendant was not taken into account. To the extent it could reasonably be acted upon by the Arbitrator, it was accordingly done. The documents which were not taken into consideration by the Arbitrator, were rejected by him with reasons. The documents which were not put to the plaintiff- respondent and now claimed by the petitioner cannot be deemed to have been admitted by the former under law. The technicalities of law of procedure and that of evidence are not to bind the parties before the Arbitrator and so the Arbitrator is not bound by them. Otherwise too, due consideration seems to have been given to the documents adduced by the petitioner and only those were taken into account which were worthy of credit and the remaining for want of worth in law were ignored accordingly and thus under these circumstances, it cannot be held that there was any misconduct of proceedings on the part of the Arbitrator.
9. ' Documents PB and DI referred to in the statement of objections by the petitioner relate to a third party who is not a party to proceedings and as a matter of fact they have nothing to do with the rates to be determined for the work done between the parties. For the rates to be fixed for the work done for the year 1967-68, an elaborate discussion was made by the learned Arbitrator and he was the best Judge of the fact in respect of the determination of rates on the material placed before him in the circumstances of the case and as such it cannot be ruled that he misconducted the proceedings even though he may be wrong in this respect. How wrong the petitioner is when he says that the Arbitrator wrongly calculated the volume of work done by the plaintiff-respondent ?
10. The petitioner has failed to look at the award that he volume of work done by the respondent was taken out of document DE placed by the former on record.
11. ' Lastly, the question of damages was rightly rejected by the learned Arbitrator. No such claim was made by the defendant-petitioner in his written statement before the Court and so also the learned Arbitrator would be deemed justified for rejection of the same. For the reasons above, there is no force in the objections put in by the petitioner against the impugned award and so they are rejected accordingly.
12. Similarly, on the other hand, the objections put in by the counsel for the plaintiff-respondent do not hold ground so as to bring them within the mischief of section 15 (b) and (c) of the Act. There is neither any error patent on the face of the record nor any incompletion in the form of the award thereby attracting the modification of the award. With regard to the rates applicable for the work done, it has already been discussed under the objections of the defendant-petitioner that as per documentary evidence adduced by the parties, the determination of the rates awarded was fairly made by the learned Arbitrator. The learned counsel for the plaintiff-respondent does not plead either for misconduct of the Arbitrator or misconduct of the proceedings. He simply wants modification in the award under section 15 of the Act, which in the circumstances on the face of the record, is not warranted. There is no error apparent on the face of the record. Nor there is a clerical mistake or an error arising from accidental slip or omission. The wrong calculations were also pleaded by the plaintiff-respondent alleging that his case falls under arithmetical mistake committed by the Arbitrator but no such mistake could be spotted by the learned counsel for the respondent. Moreover, the Court has no power to go into the merits of the case as already pointed out. Document PJ was urged upon by for fixation of the rates without any distinction. It was for the plaintiff-respondent to make it clear that what amount of work for what rate was done by him. As 11,3 was not able to do so, the learned Arbitrator was constrained to take into consideration an application of the plaintiff respondent wherein he rates at Rs, 37.50 Cft. Were demanded by him.
13. And the volume of work allegedly done by the plaintiff was not proved by him to the satisfaction of the Arbitrator. The work done taken by the learned Arbitrator in a way was also admitted by the plaintiff-respondent before a Forest Officer who also dealt with the dispute of the parties prior to the suit of the plaintiff vide DB though that settlement by D. F. O. Due to certain other things remained incomplete and was not acted upon by the parties.
14. ' Again, there is no justification for the learned counsel for the plaintiff-respondent to mention that no amount for the work done as "Amaani" could be accounted for on the side of payment by the defendant. In the circumstances of the case, it was reasonably taken into account. The cost of petrol etc. Was also correctly found the liability of the plaintiff-respondent as per record.
15. ' Next, the cost of construction of the road as per agreement could not be claimed by the plaintiff as it was rightly pointed out by the learned Arbitrator that it was the sole responsibility of the contractor to construct road at his own expenses. And so on and so forth the matter impugned by the plaintiff has no grounds to bring the same within the mischief of section 15 of the Act. Thus, the objections put in by the plaintiff-respondent also stand overruled.
16. ' The result of the whole discussion is that the objections put in by the parties fail and as such the award given by the Arbitrator is made a rule of the Court and a decree for the sum payable to the plaintiff-respondent by the petitioner-defendant is passed in favour of the former in terms the award filed in the case. In view of the settlement of the dispute through arbitration the parties are left to bear their own costs throughout.