MP High Court Sets Aside District Court Order Rejecting SAIL's Arbitration Challenge In Two Paragraphs

The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur has set aside a district court order that rejected SAIL's objections to a Rs 1.54-crore arbitration award, with its reasoning confined to just two paragraphs. The High Court said such a dismissal, without dealing with the objections raised, cannot be sustained. Justice Vivek Jain, while ordering a fresh decision through a reasoned order observed, “Such a non-speaking order passed in course of proceedings under Section 34 cannot be upheld by this...

Bombay High Court Cautions Against Injunctions On Third Parties In Arbitration Cases

The Bombay High Court has dismissed a plea seeking interim relief pending arbitration by Messe Frankfurt Trade Fairs India Pvt. Ltd, he Indian arm of German exhibition organiser Messe Frankfurt, seeking interim relief to stop two trade exhibitions in Mumbai, reiterating that courts must be cautious while granting orders directly against third parties under the arbitration law.Justice Sandeep V Marne said that while there is no absolute bar on granting interim relief against non-signatories, such...

Delhi High Court Upholds Modified Arbitral Award In Prasar Bharati Cricket Broadcast Dispute With Overseas Marketer

The Delhi High Court has dismissed cross-appeals by Prasar Bharati and Stracon India Ltd, an overseas sports marketing company, upholding a single judge's ruling that only seven days of international cricket were missing under their BCCI broadcast marketing contract, and not seventeen as awarded by the arbitrator. A Division Bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Madhu Jain agreed with the Single Judge that the arbitrator had wrongly excluded a 10-day India–Australia–New Zealand Triangular...

Delhi High Court Orders Perjury Complaint Against Walmark Officials In Fortis Arbitration Case

The Delhi High Court has directed its Registrar General to lodge a criminal complaint for perjury against two officials of Walmark Holdings Limited for making false statements and swearing affidavits before the court in an arbitration-related dispute with Fortis Healthcare Limited. The court held that this was a fit case to invoke its powers under the Criminal Procedure Code for making false statements and swearing affidavits. “I am of the prima facie view that a fit case has been made out on...

Supreme Court Orders Status Quo, Asset Disclosure In IMAX–E-City Arbitration Dispute

The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the E-City group to maintain status quo over all its assets and disclose details of its movable and immovable properties while taking up a fresh challenge to the Bombay High Court's decision that revived enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in favour of IMAX Corporation. A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K V Viswanathan issued notice on a special leave petition filed by E-City Real Estates Pvt. Ltd. and another group entity, challenging the Bombay High...

Municipal 'Self-Government' Doesn't Take Works Contract Disputes Outside State Arbitration Tribunal: MP High Court

The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur has held that disputes arising out of works contracts with municipal corporations covered by the MP Madhyastham Adhikaran Adhiniyam, 1983 cannot be taken to arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and must instead be decided by the state's statutory arbitration tribunal. Justice Vivek Jain held that although municipalities are described in the Constitution as institutions of local self-government, this does not place them beyond...

Arbitral Tribunal Followed 'Unusual Process, Unknown to Law': Bombay High Court Sets Aside Award Against HPCL

The Bombay High Court has set aside a Rs 19.82 crore arbitral award against state-run Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd., holding that the arbitral tribunal followed an “unusual process, unknown to law” and wrongly prevented the company from raising a defence that struck at the validity of the contract itself. Justice Sandeep V Marne said the arbitrator shut out HPCL from raising objections based on suppression and fraud after those facts came to light. This, the court said, was against the...

Delhi High Court Appoints Arbitrator After Earlier Plea Before UP Court Was Withdrawn

The Delhi High Court has recently allowed a plea to appoint an arbitrator in a dispute between partners of a firm, rejecting an objection that sought to block the case by relying on an earlier, abandoned court proceeding. Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar said the objection under Section 42 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act could not succeed because the earlier case filed in another court had been withdrawn without any decision. Section 42 is meant to prevent different courts from...

Road Transport Ministry Revises Highway Contracts, Bars Arbitration For ₹10 Crore-Plus Disputes

Disputes valued at Rs 10 crore or more, as well as declaratory and non-monetary disputes, under national highway contracts will no longer be referred to arbitration, under a circular issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on January 12, 2026. Such disputes will instead be dealt with through conciliation, without barring the parties from approaching civil courts. The circular updates the dispute resolution clauses in standard contracts used for Build-Operate-Transfer (Toll),...

Madras High Court Sets Aside Arbitral Award After Railways Unilaterally Appointed Tribunal

The Madras High Court has recently struck down an arbitral award in a dispute with the Integral Coach Factory after finding that the Railways unilaterally appointed the arbitral tribunal, even though the contractor had clearly objected to the process. Justice N. Anand Venkatesh held that the arbitral award stood “vitiated due to lack of jurisdiction” since the tribunal had been unilaterally constituted. The dispute goes back to a contract awarded in November 2017 by the Integral Coach Factory...

S. 37 of Arbitration Act | Fresh Material Barred At Appellate Stage If Not Placed Under Section 34: Calcutta High Court

The Calcutta High Court has held that parties to an arbitration cannot introduce completely new material for the first time at the appellate stage (Section 37) of arbitration proceedings if such material could have been produced earlier but was not placed before the court when the arbitral award was initially challenged (Section 34) The court emphasised that an appeal at this stage is not an opportunity to cure evidentiary lapses or supplement the record belatedly. A division bench of Justices...

Council Members Changed Between Hearing and Award: Calcutta High Court Sets Aside MSME Award

The Calcutta High Court has set aside an arbitral award passed by the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Facilitation Council.It held that the award in this case could not stand because it was delivered by a differently constituted tribunal than the one that heard the parties A division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi found that the dispute was heard over several years but the Council's composition kept changing. The members who finally delivered and signed the...