M/s Motilal Agarwala vs State of West Bengal & Anr.

Court

Supreme Court of India

Date

28 August 2025

Case No.

Civil Appeal No. 4480 of 2016

Result

Dismissed

Bench

J.B. Pardiwala, K.V. Viswanathan

Citation

[2025] 8 S.C.R. 2400 : 2025 INSC 1062

Acts & Sections

Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996

Issue for consideration

Issue arose whether the delivery of the true/xerox copy of the Arbitral Award duly signed by the Arbitrator to an authorised representative of the State would constitute delivery upon the respondent in accordance with s.31(5) of the 1996 Act.

Headnote

Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 – ss.31(5), 2(1) (h) – Form and contents of arbitral award – Delivery of signed copy to each party – Delivery of the true/xerox copy of the Arbitral Award duly signed by the Arbitrator to Assistant Engineer-authorised representative of the State on 12.11.2013 – Period of limitation to challenge the award could be said to have expired on

12.02. 2014 – State filed application u/s.34 on 20.03.2014, and addressed a letter to the Arbitrator to provide a certified copy of the arbitral award – Case of the State that till 12.02.2014, it had no idea about the passing of the arbitral award, it was only when the appellant initiated execution proceedings that they came to know about the same – s.34 application, being time-barred, dismissed by the trial court, however, allowed by the High Court – Correctness:

Held: Authorised representative would not fall within the ambit of “party” as defined by Clause (h) of Sub-Section (1) of s.2 to an arbitration agreement – Delivery to the Assistant Engineer who was not “a party to the arbitration” and who was not in a decisionmaking capacity to take further recourses on the award would not be a valid service of the award – Application for setting aside an arbitral award in accordance with the provisions of the Act 1996 has to be preferred by such party within three months from the date of the receipt of the arbitral award – In order to constitute an effective service, a copy of an award, where such party is the Ministry of a particular Department, is to be delivered to a person who has the knowledge and is the best person to understand and appreciate an award and more particularly, to take decision for its challenge – Authorised representative of the State could not have taken the final decision to challenge the award – It is only the Secretary of the concerned Department or the Executive Engineer, who could be said to be the competent authority to take a decision as to whether the award could be challenged or not – Order passed by the High Court upheld. [Paras 20-26]

Order 1. This appeal arises from the judgment and order passed by the High Court at Calcutta (Civil Appellate Jurisdiction), dated 01.03.2016, in F.M.A. No. 4576/2015, by which the order passed by the District Court in Miscellaneous Case No.12/2014, came to be set aside thereby holding that the Section 34 application, preferred by the State against the arbitral award, was time-barred. 2. We need not delve much into the facts of this litigation as we are in a position to affirm the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court on a neat question of law. 3. Here is a case in which an a

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