COMMISSIONER OF TRANSPORT Vs. BSC-C&C JV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Complaining that a learned single judge erred in refusing to interfere with the award of an arbitral tribunal, the Commissioner, Transport of the Government of NCT of Delhi (hereafter "Commissioner") preferred this appeal under Sec. 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("the Act"). The impugned judgment rejected the Commissioner's objections under Sec. 34 of the Act to an Award dated 14th Dec. 2015 issued by a sole Arbitrator in its disputes with the respondent (hereafter "BSC-C&C JV"or "the contractor"), a joint venture between BSCPL Infrastructure Limited and C&C Construction Ltd. The dispute arose from a contract awarded to the claimant concerning "construction of works related to widening/modification of roads to create multiple lanes of existing carriageway for High Capacity Bus System (HCBS) between Ambedkar Nagar to Delhi Gate covering a distance of 14 kilometres" (hereafter "the work" or "the contract").

(2.) The contractor was the highest and, therefore, was the successful bidder for the work; its bid was accepted on 1st Aug., 2006. The date of commencement of work under the contract was 5th Sept., 2006. It was to be completed in fifteen months, i.e. by 7th Dec., 2007. The actual date of completion was 26th Nov. 2009. The contractor claimed certain amounts; these claims were rejected by the Commissioner's engineer. It then approached the Dispute Resolution Expert (DRE) whose recommendations were not accepted by the Commissioner. The disputes were, therefore, referred to Arbitration.

(3.) The contractor claimed, before the arbitrator that the delay in completion of the project was solely attributable to the Commissioner resulting in time overrun and that it incurred consequent additional costs and losses. It claimed breaches of contract by the Commissioner, such as delay in handing over of the complete site on the start date, delay in issuance/approval of drawings and designs; non-clearance of hindrances throughout the worksite; large scale frequent changes in designs, specifications and scope of the work by the Engineer; failure to supply control points; stoppages of work by the Engineer, his instructions to delay the work and wrongful withholding of rightful dues leading to cash flow problems.