Khushi Bajpai
Published on: 22nd August, 2022 at 22:18 IST
The Supreme Court referred the matter of whether a person who is ineligible to be an arbitrator can nominate another arbitrator to a larger bench after observing that there are conflicting rulings regarding the selection of arbitrators under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.
The top court further stated that the legal dispute should be settled as soon as possible due to the issue’s repeated recurrence.
“In light of the circumstances, we order that the files pertaining to the current case be sent to the Honorable Chief Justice of India in order to create a larger bench.”
The bench of Justices UU Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat, and Sudhanshu Dhulia’s bench was informed that in its order dated 11.01.202, a 3-judge bench of the apex court in Union of India v. M/S Tantia Constructions Ltd. had already made a reference to a larger bench to look into the accuracy of the decisions in Central Organization for Railway Electrification v. ECI-SPIC-SMO-MC.
The selection of the arbitrator was contested as being in violation of the law established by the Supreme Court in TRF Ltd. before the bench chaired by Justice UU Lalit.
In the case of Perkins Eastman Architects DPC v. HSCC(India) Ltd. (2020) 20 SCC 760 and Energo Engineering Projects Ltd., (2017) 8 SCC 377, the bench observed that the high court had cited the CORE decision (supra).