GLOBAL ASIA VENTURE COMPANY Vs. ARUP PARIMAL DEB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondents in all three execution applications question the maintainability of the claimants' execution proceedings. The objection is of territorial jurisdiction or territoriality, namely, that the respondents in execution, or the parties against whom execution is sought in these proceedings, and their assets are all outside the local limits of the jurisdiction of this Court. Therefore, the respondents argue, Section 39(4) of the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 ("the Code") will govern. Since a court that passed the decree cannot execute it against any person or property outside the local limits of its jurisdiction, therefore, these execution proceedings, although they are not in execution of a court decree but in enforcement of arbitral awards or orders under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 (as amended), cannot be maintained in this Court. The submission is that the claimants must move the local district courts for enforcement.

(2.) I am not today making any order at all on the merits of the execution applications or the Chamber Summonses filed for specific reliefs in each. I have clubbed these three matters together because the respondents raised an identical objection in each. The matters are therefore tagged and clubbed together only for convenience, not because they share any commonality on facts. I will note the facts to the limited extent necessary.

(3.) In Global Asia Venture Company v Arup Parimal Deb (Commercial Execution No. 58 of 2017 and associated applications), the arbitration agreement is dated 18th September 2007. The amended award is dated 16th February 2015. The agreement provides that the seat of the arbitration is in Mumbai. There is no express provision in the agreement about a jurisdictional Court.