Calcutta High Court Declines To Entertain Arbitral Award Challenge In Disposed Arbitrator Appointment Plea

The Calcutta High Court has dismissed an application seeking to challenge an arbitral award after finding that it was filed in the wrong proceeding. The Court held that once it appoints an arbitrator, it cannot entertain further applications in that case and that any challenge to an award must be filed separately under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act.

In this case, the opposite parties approached the High Court after the arbitral award was passed but filed their challenge in the already closed case in which the arbitrator had been appointed. They told the Court that the application was filed there due to a bona fide mistake by their counsel and requested that it be treated as a proper challenge to the award.

The Court rejected this explanation.

Justice Gaurang Kanth said, “the present application came to be filed in the disposed of Section 11 proceedings owing to an inadvertent and bona fide mistake on the part of the learned Counsel, such an error cannot confer jurisdiction upon this Court where none exists. Procedural latitude, howsoever liberal, cannot be extended so as to defeat the statutory scheme of the Act, particularly when the remedy and forum for assailing an arbitral award are specifically delineated.”

The dispute goes back to 2017, when Jaya Kar approached the High Court only to have an arbitrator appointed, as the parties could not agree on one. The Court appointed a sole arbitrator on 31 July 2017 and closed the case. The arbitrator later passed an award on 28 January 2020.

After examining the filings, the Court said that the earlier case relied upon by the applicants did not apply here, as liberty to initiate further proceedings had been granted in that matter. In the present case, the appointment proceedings had attained finality and no such liberty had been given.

“Unlike in Swadha Builders, the proceedings under Section 11 herein had attained finality upon appointment of the Arbitrator, and this Court had not retained seisin over the matter nor granted any leave to file subsequent applications,” the court observed.

The application was dismissed as not maintainable. The court clarified that it had not examined the arbitral award on merits and that the award could still be challenged separately subject to law.

For Petitioner: Advocates Sukukmar Bhattacharyya and Amrita Pandey

For Respondent: Advocates Meghnath Dutta and Mohan Kumar P