MAJ PANKAJ RAI Vs. NIIT LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By way of this petition under Sec. 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [hereinafter, 'the Act"], the petitioner seeks setting aside of an Arbitral Award dtd. 19/10/2023 [hereinafter, 'the Award"], by which the learned Sole Arbitrator has rejected his claims against the respondent under an agreement dtd. 30/12/2015. A. The Agreement

(2.) The agreement between the parties, dtd. 30/12/2015, is entitled 'NIIT License Agreement (Urban)' [hereinafter, 'the Agreement"]. The respondent is engaged in the business of providing education in connection with operation of computers, offering courseware material and technical knowhow for setting up of computer education centres. The Agreement licenses the petitioner to use the respondent's trade names, designs, copyrights, technical knowhow and course materials, on a limited and non-exclusive basis, to set up an education centre in the territory of A.S. Rao Nagar, Hyderabad. The location of the proposed education centre is also provided in Schedule 1 of the Agreement. It is the petitioner's case that, pursuant to the Agreement, he incorporated a limited company which set up the education centre as required.

(3.) Disputes having arisen between the parties, the petitioner invoked arbitration by a letter dtd. 26/7/2017. The Arbitral Tribunal was constituted by an order of this Court dtd. 4/3/2022 in ARB.P. 447/2021. Although, the company set up by the petitioner was also originally impleaded as a party to the arbitration petition, it was deleted from the array of parties at the request of the petitioner.