Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 – s.31 and s.34 – Period of limitation for filing the petition u/s. 34 – A service level agreement was executed by the appellant-corporation in favour of the respondent-company providing call centre services – Agreement provided arbitration clause – The appellant-corporation terminated the service level agreement, which led to dispute between the parties – The disputes were referred to arbitration by a three-member tribunal – The arbitral tribunal orally pronounced the award [2:1] on 27.04.2018, whereby the claims of the respondent-company were allowed – The parties were informed that the third arbitrator had disagreed with the view taken by the majority of arbitrators, and would be rendering his separate opinion – A copy of the draft award was provided to the parties to point out any computation, clerical or typographical errors in the award – On 12.05.2018, a copy of the dissenting opinion was provided by the third arbitrator to the parties (even though the opinion was dated 27.04.2018) – The matter was then posted to 19.05.2018, for the parties to point out any typographical or clerical mistakes in the dissenting opinion delivered by the third arbitrator – On 19.05.2018, the signed copy of the arbitral award was provided to both the parties, and the proceedings were terminated – Whether the period of limitation for filing the Petition u/s.34 would commence from the date on which the draft award dated 27.04.2018 was circulated to the parties, or the date on which the signed copy of the award was provided i.e. 19.05.2018 – Held: s.31(1) makes it obligatory for each of the members of the tribunal to sign the award, to make it a valid award – Further, the period of limitation for filing the objections to the award u/s.34 commences from the date on which the party making the application has “received” a signed copy of the arbitral award, as required by s.31(5) of the Act – In the instant case, on 19.05.2018, the signed copy of the award and the dissenting opinion, alongwith the original record, were handed over to the parties, as also to each of the arbitrators – Therefore, the period of limitation for filing objections would have to be reckoned from the date on which the signed copy of the award was made available to the parties i.e. on 19.05.2018.