HARYANA VIDYUT PARSARAN NIGAM LTD. Vs. ARYA NIRMAN (ENGINEERS, CONSULTANTS, CONTRACTORS AND, GENERAL ORDER SUPPLIERS) AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner -Haryana Vidyut Parsaran Nigam Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "the petitioner") and respondent No. 1, Sector -6, Panchkula (M/s Arya Nirman (Engineers, Consultants, Contractors and General order suppliers) are parties to arbitration proceedings being conducted by respondent No. 2 Shri D.P. Bajaj, Chief Engineer (Retd.).

(2.) THE petitioner herein filed a plea before the learned Trial Court for replacement of the Arbitrator on the premise that he had fixed a higher amount of fee for self. In the context, reliance was placed upon a circular dated 12.5.2004 issued by the petitioner whereby certain criteria for award of fee in arbitration cases had been fixed. The plea, raised in the context, was that the fee fixed by the Arbitrator was far in excess of the norm fixed by the petitioner. The plea did not find favour with the learned Trial Court which observed as under:

(3.) THE plea is resisted by the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent No. 1 who, in support of the plea, that there is all the justification for the Arbitrator to fix the own fee, placed reliance upon Sunder Kukreja and Ors. v. Mohan Lal Kukreja and Anr. : (2009) 4 Supreme Court Cases 585 and order dated 27.2.2009 passed by a Coordinate Bench (T.S. Thakur, C.J.) of this Court in Arbitration Case No. 80 of 2006 (Bhagwan Dass & Sons v. Union of India, (2009) 155 P.L.R. 142). In the latter case, the Bench allowed the arbitrator to fix her own fee.