Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 – s.11 – In a nutshell, the case of the appellant, inter alia, is that while exercising power u/s.11 of the 1996 Act, the Court has to only examine whether the arbitration agreement exists or not and if it exists, an Arbitrator is to be appointed who, thereafter, would decide whether the claims fall within the excepted category or not – Correctness:
Held: Sub-section (6A) of s.11, which was inserted by Act 3 of 2016, with effect from 23.10.2015, makes it clear that while considering an application under sub-section (4) or sub-section (5) or sub-section (6), the Supreme Court or the High Court, as the case may be, shall, notwithstanding any judgment, decree or order of any Court, confine to the examination of the existence of an arbitration agreement – Act 33 of 2019 omitted sub-section (6A) but the amending Act has not been notified thus far – In consequence, sub-section (6A) of s.11 of the 1996 Act remains in the statute book – The High Court fell in error in bisecting the claim of the appellant into two parts, one arbitrable and the other not arbitrable, when it found arbitration agreement to be there for settlement of disputes between the parties – The correct course for the High Court was to leave it open to the party to raise the issue of non-arbitrability of certain claims before the arbitral tribunal, which, if raised, could be considered and decided by it. [Paras 7, 8, 12]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Ankit Gyan. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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