Appeals Against Award Satisfaction Orders Limited To Grounds U/S 37 Of Arbitration Act: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court on 20 July held that orders recording satisfaction of arbitral awards can be challenged only if they fall within the categories specifically provided under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

A Division Bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande dismissed the commercial appeals filed by Reliance Asset Reconstruction Co. Ltd. against Hiroo Hotchand Advani, holding that the Arbitration and Conciliation Act provides a complete appellate framework and parties cannot invoke the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 to create a wider right of appeal. It observed:

“Thus, in our view, any attempt to draw an artificial semantic distinction between a 'Judgment' and an 'Order' under Section 13(1-A) of the Act of 2015, to bypass Section 37, would be a fundamentally erroneous approach in the wake of the limited scope of judicial intervention in the arbitration proceedings.”

The dispute arose from two arbitral awards dated 22 October 2012, which were modified on 24 November 2018. Reliance Asset Reconstruction Co. Ltd., the original decree holder, initiated execution proceedings seeking enforcement of the modified awards against Hiroo Hotchand Advani.

By a common order dated 23 March 2026, a Single Judge rejected the chamber summonses filed by Reliance Asset Reconstruction Co. Ltd., recognised uncertified out-of-court payments as constituting complete satisfaction of the arbitral awards, marked the awards as satisfied and disposed of the execution proceedings.

Reliance Asset Reconstruction Co. Ltd. challenged the order, contending that the payments had neither been certified nor recorded under Order XXI Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure and that the executing court had wrongly recognised complete satisfaction of the awards. It filed commercial appeals under Section 13(1-A) of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, arguing that the order finally determined the rights of the parties and was therefore appealable.

Hiroo Hotchand Advani raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the appeals, arguing that the Commercial Courts Act only determines the forum for filing appeals and does not create any independent right of appeal beyond what is provided under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. He submitted that the Arbitration and Conciliation Act is a self-contained code and permits appeals only against orders specifically mentioned under Section 37.

Accepting the objection, the High Court held that the Arbitration and Conciliation Act is an exhaustive law governing arbitral proceedings and appellate remedies. It observed that the non-obstante clause introduced in Section 37 in 2019 reinforces the legislative intent to restrict arbitration appeals only to the categories expressly mentioned in the provision, despite the provisions of the Commercial Courts Act.

It further held that the Commercial Courts Act merely identifies the appellate forum and does not confer a substantive right to appeal. The Bench observed:

“The Act of 1996 has only 'Awards or Orders', and orders can be both, interlocutory, procedural directives and final conclusive adjudications. In the context of arbitration jurisprudence this term do not strictly conform the definition as provided in Section 2(24) as a decision of the Civil Court which is not a Decree, but it is used an umbrella nomenclature encompassing both, interlocutory as well as final conclusive adjudication between the parties. By expressly including the final adjudication of Section 34 Petition, within the ambit of Section 37(1-C) as an appealable 'order', the Act of 1996 unequivocally demonstrate that the term 'Order' in Section 37 is not limited to an interim or interlocutory order and it would include final decisions too.”

Accordingly, the High Court dismissed both commercial appeals as not maintainable and disposed of the connected interim applications.

Appearances for appellant (Reliance Asset Reconstruction Co. Ltd.): Senior Advocate Ashish Kamat and Advocates Abhishek Kothari and Nikhil Rajani, instructed by V. Deshpande & Co.

Appearances for respondent (Hiroo Hotchand Advani): Advocates Akshay Patil, Joshua Dsouza, Asif Lampwala, Saad Memon, Hriday Karia and Jash Gandhi, instructed by Bulwark Solicitors.