Notice to counsel starts limitation for challenging an arbitration award; appeal lies only from an actual refusal to set it aside.

Oral intimation to a party's pleader that an arbitration award had been filed was treated as sufficient notice under the Arbitration Act, so limitation under Article 158 began when counsel was informed; the objection was therefore time-barred. An order is appealable as one refusing to set aside an award only where an actual application to set aside the award was made and rejected; in the absence of a timely objection, that appellate provision was not attracted, so the decree based on the award remained undisturbed.

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Issues: (i) Whether intimation to the parties' pleaders that the award had been filed amounted to service of notice of the filing of the award so as to start limitation under Article 158 of the First Schedule to the Indian Limitation Act; (ii) whether the civil judge's order could be treated as an appealable order refusing to set aside the award.

Issue (i): Whether intimation to the parties' pleaders that the award had been filed amounted to service of notice of the filing of the award so as to start limitation under Article 158 of the First Schedule to the Indian Limitation Act.

Analysis: The Court held that the notice contemplated by section 14(2) of the Arbitration Act, 1940, need not be in writing. The expression "give notice" was construed as communication of the fact that the award had been filed, and oral intimation to counsel was treated as sufficient. Since notice to the pleader is notice to the party, and "service" in Article 158 was held to include constructive or informal notice where no particular mode was prescribed, the limitation period was taken to commence when the filing of the award was intimated through counsel. On the facts, the appellant had knowledge of the filing well before the objection was lodged.

Conclusion: The objection to the award was time-barred and the limitation period had validly begun.

Issue (ii): Whether the civil judge's order could be treated as an appealable order refusing to set aside the award.

Analysis: The Court held that an order refusing to set aside an award presupposes an application actually made to set it aside. Since no objection praying for setting aside the award had been filed within time, the civil judge's order could not be characterised as one refusing to set aside the award. In the absence of such an order, the appellate forum under section 39(1)(vi) of the Arbitration Act, 1940, was not attracted.

Conclusion: The order was not appealable as an order refusing to set aside the award.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed on limitation and maintainability, and the award-based decree was left undisturbed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the court communicates the filing of an award to a party's pleader, that communication constitutes service of notice for limitation purposes, and an appeal under the Arbitration Act lies only from an actual order refusing to set aside the award.

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