J P GLASS INDUSTRIES Vs. PRAMODE KUMAR NATHANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondents have not been called upon. The petitioners, somewhat bemused by an arbitration agreement being sprung on them and their contention as to the existence of the arbitration agreement being curtly rejected without oral evidence by the arbitrator, appear to be driven to desperation to suggest that a matter finally decided in course of the arbitration that cannot be revisited by the arbitrator would amount to an interim award and, as such, capable of being immediately challenged under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

(2.) Only the essential facts are necessary to be noticed. The petitioners claim that it was only upon receiving a letter issued by the so-called appointing authority that the petitioners discovered that the respondents had sought to assert that the petitioners had entered into an arbitration agreement with the respondents for the purpose of adjudication of the disputes between the parties in connection with their commercial transactions. Upon the petitioners attending the initial sittings before the arbitrator, the petitioners were favoured with copies of two letters, which, the respondents claimed, had been exchanged between the parties, as proof of the existence of the arbitration agreement. In the first of the letters, the respondents appear to have noted various terms and conditions including an arbitration clause. In the reply thereto, the petitioners appear to have agreed to the terms and conditions.

(3.) By way of an application under section 16(2) of the 1996 Act, the petitioners questioned the jurisdiction of the arbitrator on the ground that there was no arbitration agreement between the parties. The relevant application categorically stated in its seventh paragraph that the letter attributed to the petitioners, as having been issued in response to the respondents' assertion of certain terms and conditions, had neither been issued by the petitioners nor did it bear the signature of any representative of the petitioners. Such objection of the petitioners was taken up by the arbitrator and rejected rather summarily. It is not necessary to go into the grounds cited for the rejection.