Civil Revision No. 7780 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No. 7780 of 2011(O&M) Date of decision. 15.12.2011 L&T Finance Ltd. Dalhousie Road and another .... Petitioners Versus Harinder Singh ...... Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIJENDER SINGH MALIK Present: Mr. D.K. Singal, Advocate for the petitioners. **** Vijender Singh Malik, J. The defendants-petitioners have invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of this court under the provisions of Article 227 of the Constitution of India for directions to learned Civil Judge (Senior Division), Gurdaspur to decide their application filed under the provisions of sections 5 and 8 of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996(for short 'the Act') by fixing a time frame for the same. the suit brought by Harinder Singh, respondent-plaintiff is for mandatory injunction directing the defendants, their servants, agents etc. to hand over the possession of a truck to him alongwith all its papers and for permanent injunction restraining them from selling or mortgaging the said truck in favour of any third person. Civil Revision No. 7780 of 2011 2 In the said suit, the defendants-petitioners filed an application under sections 5 and 8 of the Act for referring the subject matter of the suit to arbitration in terms of the arbitration clause contained in clause 17 of the agreement between the parties. I have heard Mr.D.K. Singal, learned counsel for the petitioners and have gone through the record carefully. Learned trial court has not yet taken any decision on the application made by the petitioners-defendants. A contract has been made between the parties and if there is an arbitration clause and one party to the same brings a suit and the other party brings an application under section 8 of the Act, then the court has no discretion to refuse to refer the matter to arbitration even if there is dispute between the parties as to whether the dispute raised in the suit is covered by the arbitration clause. The arbitrator has got the jurisdiction under section 16 of the Act to adjudicate upon his own jurisdiction and validity and existence of arbitration agreement as also the arbitrarability of the subject matter of the dispute as per the terms of the arbitration clause. In this regard, I may refer to a decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Hindustan Petroleum Corpn. Ltd. v. Ms. Pinkcity Midway Petroleums 2003(3) PLR 746 . If this is the position of law, the court should first decide the application and then if it finds that the matter is not to be referred to arbitration, to proceed with the application for ad-interim injunction etc. Civil Revision No. 7780 of 2011 3 and to take further steps towards decision of the suit. So no laxity on the part of the court in deciding the application can be excused. The learned trial court seems to be ignoring the aspect of the decision of the said application, which is not permissible under law. In view of the above, the petition is allowed directing learned trial court to dispose of the application as expeditiously as possible, preferably within a period of one month, in accordance with law. 15.12.2011 ( Vijender Singh Malik ) dinesh Judge