Setting aside an Arbitral Award in India

(1)Recourse to a Court against an arbitral award may be made only by an application for setting aside such award in accordance with sub-section (2) and sub-section (3).

(2)An arbitral award may be set aside by the Court only if—

(a)the party making the application furnishes proof that—

(i)a party was under some incapacity, or

(ii)the arbitration agreementContract An agreement enforceable by law is a contract. All agreements are contracts if they are made by the free consent of parties competent to contract, for a lawful consideration and with a lawful object, and are not hereby expressly declared to be void. Indian Contract Act. is not valid under the law to which the parties have subjected it or, failing any indication thereon, under the law for the timeTime Where any expression of it occurs in any Rules, or any judgment, order or direction, and whenever the doing or not doing of anything at a certain time of the day or night or during a certain part of the day or night has an effect in law, that time is, unless it is otherwise specifically stated, held to be standard time as used in a particular country or state. (In Physics, time and Space never exist actually-“quantum entanglement”) being in force; or

(iii)the party making the application was not given proper notice of the appointment of an arbitrator or of the arbitral proceedings or was otherwise unable to present his case; or

(iv)the arbitral award deals with a dispute not contemplated by or not falling within the terms of the submission to arbitration, or it contains decisions on matters beyond the scope of the submission to arbitration:

Provided that, if the decisions on matters submitted to arbitration can be separated from those not so submitted, only that part of the arbitral award which contains decisions on matters not submitted to arbitration may be set aside; or

(v)the composition of the arbitral tribunal or the arbitral procedure was not in accordance with the agreement of the parties, unless such agreement was in conflict with a provision of this Part from which the parties cannot derogate, or, failing such agreement, was not in accordance with this Part; or

(b)the Court finds that—

(i)the subject-matter of the dispute is not capable of settlement by arbitration under the law for the time being in force, or

(ii)the arbitral award is in conflict with the public policy of IndiaIndia Bharat Varsha (Jambu Dvipa) is the name of this land mass. The people of this land are Sanatan Dharmin and they always defeated invaders. Indra (10000 yrs) was the oldest deified King of this land. Manu's jurisprudence enlitened this land. Vedas have been the civilizational literature of this land. Guiding principles of this land are : सत्यं वद । धर्मं चर । स्वाध्यायान्मा प्रमदः । Read more.

Explanation 1. For the avoidance of any doubt, it is clarified that an award is in conflict with the public policy of India, only if,—

(i)the making of the award was induced or affected by fraud or corruption or was in violation of section 75 or section 81; or

(ii)it is in contravention with the fundamental policy of Indian law; or

(iii)it is in conflict with the most basic notions of moralityMorality Mental frame. It can be high morality or low morality, savage morality or civilised morality or Christian morality, or Nazi morality. Decent Behaviour is acceptable norms of the nations. Christian morality starts with the belief that all men are sinners and that repentance is the cause of divine mercy. Putting Crucified Christ in between is the destruction of Christian morality and logic. Now morality shifted to the personal choice of Jesus. What Jesus did is 'good'. The same would be the case of Ram, Krishna, Muhammad, Buddha, Lenin, etc. Pure Human Consciousness degraded to pure followership. There exists no proof the animals are devoid of morality. or justice.

Explanation 2.—For the avoidance of doubt, the test as to whether there is a contravention with the fundamental policy of Indian law shall not entail a review on the meritsMerits Strict legal rights of the parties; a decision “on the merits” is one that reaches the right(s) of a party as distinguished from a disposition of the case on a ground not reaching the rights raised in the action; for example, in a criminal case double jeopardy does not apply if charges are nolle prossed before trial commences, and in a civil action res judicata does not apply if a previous action was dismissed on a preliminary motion raising a technicality such as improper service of process. of the dispute.

(2A)An arbitral award arising out of arbitrations other than international commercial arbitrations, may also be set aside by the Court, if the Court finds that the award is vitiated by patent illegality appearing on the face of the award:

Provided that an award shall not be set aside merely on the ground of an erroneous application of the law or by reappreciation of evidenceEvidence All the means by which a matter of fact, the truth of which is submitted for investigation, is established or disproved. Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Adhiniyam 2023 .

(3)An application for setting aside may not be made after three months have elapsed from the date on which the party making that application had received the arbitral award or, if a request had been made under section 33, from the date on which that request had been disposed of by the arbitral tribunal:Provided that if the Court is satisfied that the applicant was prevented by sufficient cause from making the application within the said period of three months it may entertain the application within a further period of thirty days, but not thereafter.

(4)On receipt of an application under sub-section (1), the Court may, where it is appropriate and it is so requested by a party, adjourn the proceedings for a period of time determined by it in order to give the arbitral tribunal an opportunity to resume the arbitral proceedings or to take such other action as in the opinionOpinion A judge's written explanation of a decision of the court. In an appeal, multiple opinions may be written. The court’s ruling comes from a majority of judges and forms the majority opinion. A dissenting opinion disagrees with the majority because of the reasoning and/or the principles of law on which the decision is based. A concurring opinion agrees with the end result of the court but offers further comment possibly because they disagree with how the court reached its conclusion. of arbitral tribunal will eliminate the grounds for setting aside the arbitral award.

(5)An application under this section shall be filed by a party only after issuing a prior notice to the other party and such application shall be accompanied by an affidavitAffidavit An ex parte statement in writing made under oath before a notary public or other officer authorized to administer oaths, about facts which the affiant either knows of his own personal knowledge or is aware of to the best of his knowledge. by the applicant endorsing compliance with the said requirement.

(6)An application under this section shall be disposed of expeditiously, and in any event, within a period of one year from the date on which the notice referred to in sub-section (5) is served upon the other party.

COMMENT –The principle of Intervention:  The law with regard to Section 34 of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, is well settled that the jurisdictionJurisdiction Authority by which courts receive and decide cases. Limited Jurisdiction: the authority over only particular types of cases, or cases under a prescribed amount in controversy, or seeking only certain types of relief, the District Court is a court of limited jurisdiction. Original Jurisdiction: Jurisdiction of the first court to hear a case. of the Court to interfere with the award made by an arbitrator is very limited and consequently the court while entertaining an objection petition under Section 34 of the said Act cannot sit as a Court of Appeal and that evidence is not to be re- appreciated. The Apex Court in the case of Markfed Vanaspati and Allied Industries v. Union of India reported in (2007) 7 Supreme Court Cases 679, while relying on Bijendra Nath Srivastava (Dead) through LRs v. Mayank Srivastava And Others reported in (1994) 6 Supreme Court Cases 117, has observed that “the arbitrator is the sole judge of the quality as well as the quantity of the evidence. It will not be for the court to take upon itself the task of being a judge of the evidence before the arbitrator. The court should approach an award with a desire to support it, if that is reasonably possible, rather than to destroy it by calling it illegal.” Further in Mcdermott International Inc. v. Burn Standard Co. Ltd. & Ors reported in (2006) 11 SCC 181 it has been held by the Apex Court that “the 1996 Act makes provision for the supervisory role of courts, for the review of the arbitral award only to ensure fairness. Intervention of the court is envisaged in few circumstances only like, in case of fraud or bias by the arbitrators, violation of natural justice, etc.” Recently, the observations of the Apex Court in para 21 in P.R. Shah, Shares and Stock Brokers Private Limited v. B.H.H. Securities Private Limited And Others reported in (2012) 1 Supreme Court Cases 594 is worth noting in this respect. Para 21 reads as under:-
“21. A court does not sit in appeal over the award of an Arbitral Tribunal by reassessing or reappreciating the evidence. An award can be challenged only under the grounds mentioned in Section 34 (2) of the Act. Therefore, in the absence of any ground under section 34 (2) of the Act, it is not possible to re-examine the facts to find out whether a different decision can be arrived at.”

Appreciation of facts and evidence: Where the Arbitral Tribunal has assessed the material and evidence placed before it in detail, the court while considering the objections under Section 34 of the said Act does not sit as a court of appeal and is not expected to re-appreciate the entire evidence and reassess the case of the parties. The jurisdiction under section 34 is not appellate in nature and an award passed by an Arbitrator cannot be set aside on the ground that it was erroneous. It is not open to the court to interfere with the award merely because in the opinion of the court, another view is possible. The duty of the court in these circumstances is to see whether the view taken by the Arbitrator is a plausible view on the facts, pleadings and evidence before the Arbitrator. Even if on the assessment of material, the court while considering the objections under section 34 is of the view that there are two views possible and the Arbitral Tribunal has taken one of the possible views which could have been taken on the material before it, the court would be reluctant to interfere. The court is not to substitute its view with the view of the Arbitrator if the view taken by the Arbitrator is reasonable and plausible.