PRAMOD KUMAR Vs. RELIGARE SECURITIES LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has been filed by the appellant under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act , 1996, whereby he has challenged the judgment dated 19.10.2016 in Original Miscellaneous Petition (OMP) No. 535/2015. In this OMP, the appellant had challenged the Arbitral Award dated 18.12.2014 passed by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Arbitral Tribunal and the order of NSE Arbitral Appellate Tribunal (AAT) dismissing his appeal vide order dated 25.05.2015. The dispute between the appellant and the respondent was related to the Member-Client Agreement dated 31.05.2010.

(2.) The admitted facts are that the appellant vide Member-Client Agreement dated 31.05.2010 opened a DEMAT account with the respondent for equity trading. According to the appellant, he had made it clear to the respondent at the time of opening of the said account that he was interested in investing in portfolio of equity shares as a long-term investment and was not interested in short- term trading. It was also his case that he had not permitted the respondent to do any trading without the authorisation from him. According to him, a limited Power of Attorney was given to the respondent for opening of the share trading account. The petitioner was then allotted CRN Number, Depository client ID and trading user ID. The contentions of the appellant were that the respondent had started unauthorized trading in the futures and options ('F& O') segment w.e.f 16.08.2010, without his authorization. This trading continued between August 2010 to February 2011 and the respondent during this period zeroed the entire investment of the appellant. According to him, he had been visiting Ukraine for business purposes quite frequently during the period 16.06.2010 and 29.12.2010. On coming to know of the unauthorized trading, the appellant repeatedly asked the respondent officers to stop any trading in the F&O segment which had caused a loss of Rs. 4671840.79 up to 01.02.2011. As per the contention of the appellant, the respondents had assured him to compensate for the losses suffered and dissuaded him from filing any complaint. As per the appellant, his shares worth approximately Rs 52,00,000/- with Indiabulls Securities Ltd. were transferred from his account. A lot of 15 scrips got transferred on 14.08.2010 and 5 scrips on 26.08.2010. He learned on receiving the SMS from the NSDL that all stocks of the appellant were moved from the beneficiary account to broker margin account. This movement was done without his permission and without authorisation from him. He thereafter withdrew the PoA issued earlier by him in favour of the respondent.

(3.) As per the appellant, when the respondent failed to compensate him, he filed a complaint with 'Wecare', the respondent's customer care email ID, on 05.02.2011. In the absence of any progress on his complaint to 'Wecare', he filed a complaint against the respondent with the Investor Service Cell of the 'NSE on 09.03.2011. The dispute between him and the respondent was thereafter referred by NSE to the Arbitral Tribunal ('AT') comprising of three members. The respondent also filed a counter claim for a balance outstanding amount of Rs. 1,02,833.23 as on 11.02.2011 and the said amount grew to Rs. 1,78,020.44 as on 21.05.2017. The AT passed its Award on 18.12.2014 whereby the claim of the appellant was rejected and the counter claim of the respondent was upheld.