Arbitral award enforcement cannot be used to mount CPC objections; civil court challenge lies only under Article 227.

Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 operates as a limited enforcement mechanism, and the legal fiction of treating an award as a decree cannot be extended to invoke Section 47 CPC or Order 21 Rules 97 to 101 CPC to attack the award itself at the execution stage. Collateral objections aimed at annulling the arbitral award were therefore held not maintainable. A challenge to a civil court order between private parties, although framed under Article 226, could be entertained only within supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227, since certiorari does not lie against such judicial orders. The supervisory challenge consequently failed because no jurisdictional or legal error was shown in refusing the objections.

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Issues: (i) Whether objections under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure and Order 21 Rules 97 to 101 of the Code of Civil Procedure can be raised in proceedings under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for enforcement of an arbitral award; and (ii) whether the writ petition, though framed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, could be entertained only as a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against a civil court order.

Issue (i): Whether objections under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure and Order 21 Rules 97 to 101 of the Code of Civil Procedure can be raised in proceedings under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for enforcement of an arbitral award?

Analysis: The scheme of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 treats arbitral proceedings as a special self-contained code. Judicial intervention is excluded except as provided in the Act, and Section 36 permits enforcement of an award only as if it were a decree for the limited purpose of execution. That legal fiction cannot be extended to import the general execution provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure so as to challenge the validity of the award itself at the enforcement stage. Accordingly, the executing court was right in holding that objections directed to annulling the award were not maintainable under Section 47 or Order 21 Rules 97 to 101.

Conclusion: The objection was not maintainable, and the dismissal of the miscellaneous case was in law.

Issue (ii): Whether the writ petition, though framed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, could be entertained only as a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against a civil court order?

Analysis: A writ of certiorari under Article 226 does not lie against judicial orders of civil courts, and mandamus cannot issue against private persons not discharging public duty. Since the challenge was to a civil court order in a dispute between private parties, the matter could be considered only within supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227.

Conclusion: The petition was maintainable only under Article 227 and not under Article 226.

Final Conclusion: The supervisory challenge failed because the executing court committed no jurisdictional or legal error in refusing to entertain the collateral objections to the arbitral award at the enforcement stage.

Ratio Decidendi: A proceeding under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is governed by that special statute, and the Code of Civil Procedure cannot be invoked to mount a collateral challenge to the arbitral award itself at the enforcement stage; the legal fiction of enforcement as a decree is confined to execution alone.

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