IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION ARBITRATION APPEAL NO. 30 OF 2007 Vitage Cards & Creations Ltd........Appellant versus Anand Bhimrao Deshpande ....... Respondent. Mr. S. J. Dixit for the Appellants Mr. Risbud Rahul for the Respondent. CORAM; A.P. DESHPANDE, J. DATED; 18TH JULY, 2008. P.C.: 1. This is an appeal directed against the order passed by the District Judge, rejecting the application filed under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996. The learned counsel appearing for the appellant has submitted that the resopondent had made a claim, before the Arbitrator for payment of arrears of salary which was comprised in two counts (1) arising prior to entering into the agreement of arbitration and the other thereafter. He fairly submits that the claim post execution of the arbitraral agreement was capable of being adjudicated upon by the Arbitrator. However, in his submission, the claim for the period prior to the date of the agreement would fall outside the jurisdiction of the Arbitrator. It is not in dispute that the plea about want of jurisdiction was not raised in the written statement by the present appellant before Arbitrator. It was not objected that the claim for the period prior to the agreement cannot be dealt with in the arbitration proceeding by the arbitrator. However, the said objection was raised in proceedings under section 34 of the Act. Thus the question that arose before the District Judge was as to whether could such an objection be raised at that stage in view of the fact that the appellant did not raise the objection before the Arbitrator. The District Judge has concluded in favour of the respondent that the objection to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, on the ground that the agreement did not postulate arbitration of the dispute prior to the date of execution of the said agreement cannot be permitted to be raised by placing reliance on the Division Bench judgment of this court reported in 2007(5) Bom.C.R. 478 in Vimal G. Jain Vs. Vertex Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. & anr. After considering the legal position in the light of the Supreme Court judgment reported in 2007 (4) Mh.L.J. 700 in the case of Surendra Kapoor Vs. Prabirkumar , it was held that the plea of no agreement clause or the objection to the jursidcition, if not raised before the Arbitrator, the same shall be taken to have been waived and thus it would be impermissible to raise the said objection in the proceedings under section 34. The learned counsel for the respondent has also placed reliance on the judgment of the Supreme Court reported in AIR 2002 S.C. 1139. In view of the provisions of section 16(2) read with section 4 I am of the clear view that the District Judge has decided the question in accordance with the law. Hence no interference is called for. In the result the appeal is dismissed. (A.P. DESHPANDE, J)