Delhi High Court
Inder Kumar Chawla And Ors. vs Ashwani Khurana on 3 March, 2008
Author: S N Dhingra
Bench: S N Dhingra
ORDER
Shiv Narayan Dhingra, J.
1. This appeal under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (for short, ?the Act?) has been preferred by the appellants against an order dated 30th January 2007 passed by learned Arbitrator whereby the learned Arbitrator dismissed several pending applications of the appellants.
2. At the very outset, the respondent has questioned the maintainability of the appeal under Section 37 of the Act and the arguments have been advanced only on the question of maintainability of the appeal.
3. I consider that it would be fruitful to enumerate the applications disposed of by the arbitrator:
i. An application made by the respondent for impleadment of several other companies owned by the claimant to the dispute.
ii. An application for removal of the Chartered Accountant appointed by the Court to go into the records and accounts of the partnership firm and to do valuation of assets, determination of profits and losses and diversion of funds, if any.
iii. Two applications under Order 6 Rule 17 CPC for amendment of the claims.
iv. Application of the Respondents seeking withdrawal of the order dated 23rd May 2005 passed by the learned Arbitrator framing issues/questions in controversy.
v. Application for initiating contempt proceedings against the claimant alleging therein violation of interim orders.
vi. An application by both parties viz claimant as well as respondent seeking interim order against the opposite side restraining the from selling/alienating or creating any third party interest of their personal assets and to deposit an amount of Rs. 1.6 crore received from the Income Tax Department as refund and seeking a restrained order from selling, transferring or creating third party rights in 2,55,000 shares. The respondent/appellant filed an application seeking restrain against disposing of several properties as per a list given in the application.
4. The appellants, by way of instant appeal, has asserted legality and validity of the order disposing of above applications stating that the Arbitrator failed to appreciate the legal and factual situation and passed an unlawful order and that the order of learned Arbitrator was unreasonable and vague.
5. Since this Court is presently deciding only the maintainability of this appeal under Section 37 of the Act, there is no necessity of going into the merits of the order, dismissing all the applications. The maintainability of the appeal has to be considered in view of Section 37 of the Act which reads as under:
37. Appealable orders.- (1) An appeal shall lie from the following orders (and from no others) to the Court authorized by law to hear appeals from original decrees of the Court passing the order, namely:
(a) granting or refusing to grant any measure under Section 9;
(b) setting aside or refusing to set aside an arbitral award under Section 34.
(2) An appeal shall also lie to a Court from an order granting of the arbitral tribunal.-
(a) accepting the plea referred in sub- section (2) or sub-section (3) of Section 16; or
(b) granting or refusing to grant an interim measure under Section 17.
6. A perusal of Section 37 (1) (a) of the Act would show that it contemplates that no appeal shall lie from any order except granting or refusing to grant measures under Section 9. Sub Section 1(b) of Section 37 relates to the order passed under Section 34. Sub Section 2(a) of Section 37 provides that appeal shall lie to a Court from an order of the arbitral tribunal accepting the plea referred in sub-section (2) or sub-section (3) of Section 16. Section 2(b) contemplates that an appeal shall lie against the order granting or refusing to grant an interim measure under Section 17 of the Act. It is thus clear from the perusal of Section 37 that the right to appeal is restricted only to those orders which satisfy the provisions of Section 37.
7. The impugned order of the learned Arbitrator disposed of various applications. Except the order on application under Section 17 of the Act, no other part of order is covered under Section 37 of the Act. Hence, the appeal lies only against the order of learned Arbitrator, whereby he disposed of the applications under Section 17 of the Act regarding interim relief.
8. I, therefore, hold that the present appeal is maintainable only in respect of the part of order dealing with the applications under Section 17 of the Act and is not maintainable for the other parts of the impugned order dealing with other applications.
OMP No. 139/2007
To come up for arguments on 25th July 2008.
