lb& responde':'t Company's tender for the movement and deprisitiag of e;uth on the nght d:[ke o,f the Hirakud Dam was provisionally accepted by the Gove'rnment m December 1951. The work started in February 1952 and a formal contract was ..,xecuted in March 1953. The eartb work was done by maIJual labour foi a-year in the beginning and thereafter it was done to a large extent by maChinet:Y. The vertical movement was styled as "lift" and the horizontal movem'ent as 11lead". When the company started employing the heavy machine'ry from the beginning of 1953. onwards a number of ,ramps had to be con>tructcd to· enable the machinery· to go up from the borrow pits to the dyke.• After the work was completed, the respondent Company \Vas pai<l a certain amount on the basis of a 'Scale set out in the contlract; but it claimed an addi.:. tional subst;lntial sum ir.. respect of lifts and extra lf!ads and certain other items together- with the interest on ·the amounts due. It was provided in the contract that if the average J.;ad mentioned had to be exceded, the orders of the Chief Engineer in writing had to be obtained by the :contractor. The respopdcnt Company cloimed that it had ·~dght the orders o.f the Chief Engineer in writing for the extra leads rcsu1iing from the' conYersion of lifts into lea<ls and that although the Chief Engineer did not himself make any such order, the 'Superintending ngineer with whom the Company had been dealing Jid sign an order for the Chief Engineer. The contract provided for arbitration of disputes and differ encos. After the matter was t.:.iken up fo:r arbitration, issues were framed by the arbitrator· and considerable oral and documentary evidence was led by bath the parties before him. On the basis of this evidence the arbitrator found that the tender must be taken to have been made arid accepted on the basis that the whole work was to be done by mapual lahour; he believed the evidence of. the Chief Engineer that he passed no order allowing any extra leads and eventually held that no further amount \Vas payable by the Government to the Company. The respon· dent thereafter filed n plaint under Sections 30 and 33 of th1.: Indian Arbitration Act, 1940, challenging the award on variou·s grounds· and praying for it to be set aside. The subordinate Judge \Vho eard the case set aside the tnvard ih March 1962. In an appeal to the High Court thC t\'o Judges \Yho constituted the Division Bench gave dissenting: judgments, i.e. one of them holding that the a\vnrd could, not h suhstained and the other one being of the vic\v that the a\vard \V:t!' not liable to be set asic!c. The appeal \Vas the'rl heard by a third judge \Vho held that the award was linhlc to be set aside on f\'O of the ... issues: as hi.! held these issues to be ..severable. he proceeded to set aside the a\'ard in respeel of them.
