Punjab and Haryana High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Amit Rawal, J., allowed a revision petition which was filed against the order whereby an application submitted under Section 8 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for resolution of dispute was dismissed by the Trial Court.
The facts of the case are such that a suit was filed by respondent seeking permanent injunction on the property in question. In the suit, respondent was aggrieved by the fact that petitioner had cancelled an agreement for sale of property in furtherance of which respondent had already made payments. Petitioner contested the suit by filing an application under Section 8 of the Act stating any dispute which arises between the parties are to be taken to arbitration. This application was dismissed by the trial court as they found no agreement entered into between the parties. Hence, the petitioner approached the High Court.
The High Court was of the view that a stand-alone agreement, an application submitted by the respondent that contained terms and condition would be considered to suggest that the parties were willing to resolve the dispute by way of arbitration. The Court observed that the suit was not maintainable as the matter was to be resolved by way of arbitration by virtue of Section 8 of the Act. Therefore, the impugned order whereby application filed under Section 8 was dismissed was set aside.[IREO Grace Realtech (P) Ltd. v. Neeru Babbar,2018 SCC OnLine P&H 1205, decided on 01-06-2018]
