Compulsory registration of arbitral awards affecting immovable property; an unregistered award cannot be acted on by the court.

An arbitral award that, on its face, creates or declares rights in immovable property is compulsorily registrable under the Registration Act, 1908. The controlling test is the effect and purport of the award itself, not how the dispute is described by the parties. If the award is unregistered when the court is asked to act on it, section 49 prevents it from being received as evidence of the property transaction, and the court cannot pronounce judgment upon it under the Arbitration Act, 1940. Later registration does not retrospectively cure that defect for pending proceedings.

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Issues: Whether an arbitral award that declares ownership rights in immovable property worth more than one hundred rupees is compulsorily registrable and, if unregistered at the relevant time, can be looked into by the court for making the award a rule of the court; and whether subsequent registration cures the defect.

Analysis: Section 17(1)(e) of the Registration Act, 1908 requires registration of an award when it purports or operates to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any right, title or interest in immovable property of the prescribed value. The decisive test is the effect and purport of the document on its face, not the parties' characterization of the underlying dispute. The award in question expressly declared that the appellant's half share in the land would now be owned by the respondent, thereby creating or declaring rights in immovable property. By virtue of Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908, such an unregistered document cannot be received as evidence of a transaction affecting the property, and the court cannot pronounce judgment upon it under Section 14 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 unless it is registrable and registered at the relevant time. The Court further held that the later registration did not validate the award retrospectively for the purpose of the proceedings then pending, and the objection could be raised in the proceeding under Section 14.

Conclusion: The award was compulsorily registrable, the unregistered award could not be acted upon by the court, and the appellant succeeded.

Ratio Decidendi: An arbitral award that, on its face, creates or declares rights in immovable property of the prescribed value is compulsorily registrable, and an unregistered award cannot be relied upon by the court to pronounce judgment on it under the Arbitration Act.

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