B. Balaiah vs The Superintending Engineer And Ors.

1. These appeals are directed against an order made by the High Court setting aside a decree which was passed in terms of the Award made by an Arbitrator when the dispute between parties was referred to him. There were as many as 11 claims made by the appellant and they are as follows:

DETAILS OF CLAIMS MADE :

Claim 1 Damages Rs. 24,00,000

Claim 2 Overheads Rs. 3,00,000

Claim 3 Cyclon damages Rs. 1,91,000

Claim 4 Idle Charges for labour and machine Rs. 78,000

Claim 5 Fixation of reasonable and workable supplemental rates Rs. 16,51.673

Claim 6 Refund of amount recovered towards centage @ 10% and Sales Tax @ 4% Amount recovered (Rs. 12,483+17,311) Rs. 29,794

Interest is claimed on these amounts at 24% p.a. from the dates of recovery, till the date of petition. A revised prayer was filed before the Arbitrator on 15.6.1985 towards interest upto the date of award. To be calculated.

Claim 7 Payment of final bill, refund of security deposits, and withheld amounts,

i.

Value of final bill (as agreed by both the parties during the final hearing on 16.6.1985) Rs. 1,31,669

ii.

EMD paid by DE Rs. 10,000

iii.

P.S.D. recovered from bil Rs. 3,97,267

iv.

Amounts wrongfully recovere Rs. 29,794

v.

Amounts due under disputed rates of supplemental items Rs. 16,51,673

vi.

EMD by bank guarant Rs. 1,58,600

Interest is claimed at 24% p.s. on this claim from 1.9.1982 the date of petition. A revise prayer was filed before the Arbitrator on 15.6.1985 to award interest upto the date of award. Of these amounts, item (iv) is covered by claim No. 6 and item (v) is covered by claim No. 5 Item (vi) relates to the release of bank guarantee.

Claim 8 Seignicrage charges. The prayer is to given directions to the Respondents not to effect the proposed.

Claim 9 Balance payment for fixing 25 mm dier, anchor road Rs. 8,897

Claim 10 Costs Rs. 10,000

Claim 11 INTEREST - The claim is for award of interest at 24% p.a., on the awarded amount, from the date of the petition to the date of decree of realisation, whichever is earlier.

2. The Arbitrator awarded a lump sum of Rs. 23,48,116/- to the extent the claim were found reasonable against claim 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 to the appellant.

3. The High Court found that the claim in respect of items 1 and 5 are totally unsupportable in law. Considering the nature of the matter very widely, the appellant did not pursue with these two claims in this Court. If we exclude these two claims the balance of the claim will be much less than what was originally claimed by the appellant. In the ordinary course, we should have set aside the award and remanded the matter back to the Arbitrator to reassess the amount payable to the appellant except claim Nos. 1 and 5 inasmuch as, we are not in a position to ascertain the mind of the Arbitrator as to how he awarded a lump sum amount of Rs. 23,48,116/-. However, considering the facts and circumstances of this case and the fact that the dispute between the parties has been pending since, 1978, we think the better course will be to direct payment of the amounts arising against the claims made by the appellant except claim Nos. 1 and 5 and those amounts shall be paid to the extent of 75 per cent We are deducing this amount bearing in mind the mode adopted by the Arbitrator. The amount payable thereon shall carry interest from the date of the decree made by the Civil Court at 12 per cent per annum. The order of the High court and the decree of the trial court stand modified in the manner stated above. The appeals shall stand disposed of accordingly.