CLAUSE 196.—(Rights of railway companies in respect of arbitration under contracts.) (Hansard, 21 May 1935)

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL

I beg to move, in page 115, line 41, to leave out from the second" the, "to the end of the Clause, and to insert: matter in dispute is of such a nature that under the contract the company might require, or, but for some provision of this Act, might have required, it to be submitted to arbitration, the dispute shall be deemed to have arisen between the company and the Secretary of State and the provisions of the contract relating to the determination of such a dispute shall have effect with the substitution of the Secretary of State for the Secretary of State in Council. Any award made in an arbitration under the foregoing provisions of this section and any settlement of the dispute agreed to by the Secretary of State with the concurrence of his advisers shall be binding on the Federal Government and the Authority and any sum which the Secretary of State may become liable or may so agree to pay by way of debt, damage or costs and any costs or expenses incurred by him in connection with the matter shall be paid out of the revenues of the Federation and shall be charged on those revenues but shall be a debt due to the Federation from the Authority.? Clause 196 is meant to deal with the case where there is an existing contract between the railway company in India and the Secretary of State in Council, with an arbitration clause. It is necessary to adjust that position to the position as it will be under the Bill. The Amendment does what the Bill as drafted was intended to do; it makes the necessary adjustment in the simplest form. It was pointed out that difficulties might arise under the words which had been used in the Bill as originally drafted, and that it would be rather simpler to deal with the matter in the way that this Amendment does, under which the dispute is deemed to have arisen between the company and the Secretary of State, instead of the company and the Secretary of State in Council. Then the arbitration takes place between the company and the Secretary of State, and the award is binding on the Federation.