RAKESH S. KATHOTIA Vs. MILTON GLOBAL LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The captioned proceedings are cross petitions filed under Sec. 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 ("the Act") challenging an arbitral award dated December 23, 2017 and an additional award dated February 16, 2018 (collectively, "Impugned Award") passed by a Learned Arbitral Tribunal comprising a sole arbitrator.

(2.) The Impugned Award is related to disputes and differences in connection with an equally-owned joint venture between the claimants in the arbitral proceedings, namely Rakesh S. Kathotia ("Kathotia") and Subhkam Ventures (I) Pvt. Ltd. ("Subhkam") (Kathotia and Subhkam are collectively referred to as the "Subhkam Group"); and the various respondents other than Milton Global Ltd. ("Milton JV") in the arbitral proceedings (collectively, the "Vaghani Group"). Milton JV is the 50:50 joint venture company in which each of the Subhkam Group and the Vaghani Group hold equal ownership.

(3.) The aforesaid bipartite classification is not only convenient but also appropriate for purposes of these proceedings. The Learned Arbitral Tribunal has returned very detailed and well-reasoned findings in the Impugned Award on how all the Respondents in the arbitral proceedings were inter-related and one collective economic and family unit with aligned interests, and how their initial defences of attempting to indicate separability broke down.