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TMI Blog1988 (10) TMI 282X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n behalf of the Rehabilitation Department of the Government of India. The Respondent applied for a loan from the Ministry of Defence for construction of the house on the said plot and a loan of ₹ 15,000 was sanctioned in his favour. Under the House Construction Rules of the Government, the plans and estimates had to be submitted along with the application and a sanctioned amount was paid in four instalments at different stages of construction. The Respondent started the construction of a building on the said land. By the end of 1973, the Respondent had constructed a house on the said plot upto the roof level. By that time he had obtained and used up a sum of ₹ 12,000 out of the loan sanctioned to him and only a balance of ₹ 3,000 remained to be paid to him under the said loan. According to the Respondent, this amount was not sufficient for the final completion of the house and he, therefore, sought the help of Appellant No. I who advanced a sum of ₹ 5,000 to him. In September, 1973 the Respondent entered into an agreement dated September 6, 1973 to sell the house and the said plot to the Appellant No. 1. The aforesaid amount of ₹ 5,000 given by way of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d applied for setting aside the said award. This application was dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge. The Appellants filed an appeal against this decision on October 14,1982 before the Delhi High Court but the said appeal was dismissed by the learned Single Judge of that High Court on April 30, 1985. This decision of the learned Single Judge was challenged before this Court by way of Special Leave Petition under Article 136 of the Constitution. Leave was granted and the present Appeal came to be numbered as aforesaid. This Appeal came up for hearing before a Division Bench of this Court on November 18,1987. After hearing Counsel for the parties. in order to ensure fairplay in the action, this Court set aside the award of the Arbitrator and also the judgment of the Delhi High Court and appointed Shri A.C. Gupta, a former Judge of this Court, as the sole arbitrator to adjudicate upon the disputes between the parties. The arbitrator was directed to make his award with short reasons within four months from the receipt of the the order. Certain other conditions like payment of compensation and additional expense were imposed on the Appellants. Pursuant to the said order o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ht not convey and interest to Appellant No. 1 in the property, the Appellants had been put in possession of the said land and construction pursuant to the said agreement since September 1973, as appears from the agreement of sale. and, in view of this, Appellants were entitled to retain possession under the protection afforded by Section 53A of the Transfer of Act. 1882. He drew our attention to the following statements contained in the award of the learned Arbitrator: The Respondent who has been in possession of the property since September 1973 as would appear from the agreement for sale, claimed that his possession was protected Under Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act ...... Section 53A affords protection to a transferee on certain condition, One of which is that the transferee has performed or is willing to perform his part of contract . Under the agreement for sale, the respondent was required to pay the claimant a monthly sum of ₹ 105 to enable the latter to pay the instalments in discharge of the house building loan. From the receipts filed it appears that the respondent paid only upto January 1976 which covered 23 instalments only and more than 100 i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ement and the High Court was right in holding that respondent was entitled to a decree for specific performance. In our view, Mr. Bhandare may be right in contending that this decision does show that it has been held by this Court that in certain circumstances once a party to a contract has repudiated a contract, it is not necessary for the other party to tender the amount payable under the contract in the manner provided in the contract in order to successfully claim the specific performance of the contract. The decision, however, nowhere lays down that where one party to a contract repudiates the contract, the other party to the contract who claims specific performance of the contract is absolved from his obligation to show that he was ready and willing to perform the contract. Mr. Bhandare s argument really is to the effect that the Respondent wrongly repudiated the contract by his said letter dated 16th January, 1976, before all the mutual obligations under the contract had been carried out, that is to say, he committed an anticipatory breach of the contract and in view of this, Appellant No. 1 was absolved from carrying out his remaining obligations under the contract and coul ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... du Thozillar Samgam v. Balasubramania Foundary and others, [1987] 3 S.C.C. 723 it has been held by this Court that it is an error of law and not a mistake of fact committed by the Arbitrator which is justiciable in the application before the Court. If there is no legal proposition either in the award or in any document annexed to the award which is erroneous and constitutes the basis of the award and the alleged mistakes or alleged errors, are only mistakes of fact the award is not amenable to corrections by the Court. In its judgment, the Court referred to the decision of this Court in Union of India v. A. L. Rallia Ram, [1964] 3 S.C.R. 164; AIR 1963 SC 1685 and, after referring to certain factors pertaining to awards in arbitration proceedings and the machinery devised by the Arbitration Act 1940, pointed out that the award was the decision of a domestic tribunal chosen by the parties and the civil courts which were entrusted with the power to facilitate arbitration and to effectuate the awards, could not exercise appellate powers over the decisions. This Court reiterated that it was now firmly established that an award was bad on the ground of error of law on the face of it only ..... 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