Calcutta High Court: An appeal was decided by a Division Bench comprising of Sanjib Banerjee and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, JJ., wherein the order of the Arbitration Court refusing to entertain a challenge to an arbitral award was upheld.
The appellant challenged a certain arbitral award passed by the District Judge, in the Arbitration Court. The said Court refused to entertain such challenge in the light of mandate of Section 42 of the A&C Act, 1996. Previous to filing the said challenge before the Arbitration Court, a petition was filed under Section 9 of the said Act before the District Judge. The appellant, in the instant appeal, challenged the order passed by the Arbitration Court refusing to entertain the said challenge.
In order to settle the controversy, the High Court perused Section 42 and also referred to Sections 8 and 11 of the said Act. The Court observed that in view of the mandate in Section 42, once a petition under Part-I of the Act pertaining to an arbitration agreement is carried to a particular court and such court entertains it and there is no objection as to its jurisdiction, all subsequent petitions under Part–I of the Act of 1996 pertaining to the same arbitration agreement have to be carried only to such court. The Court also observed that Section 42 covers not only particular arbitral reference, but the arbitration agreement itself. Further, Sections 8 and 11 of the Act are beyond the purview of Section 42.
On the basis of above discussion, the Court was of the view that no fault could be found in the order impugned by the appellant, and accordingly, the appeal was dismissed with cost. [Dalim Kumar Chakraborty V. Gouri Biswas, APO No. 33 of 2018, order dated 16-02-2018]
