Mr. Bharat Chugh has given valuable adv ice. Kindly follow it.
Section 34 in The Arbitration And Conciliation Act, 1996
34. Application for setting aside arbitral award.
(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 subsection (3).
(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;
Kindly look into the attachment:
• Section 34 of the 1996 Act makes a mere challenge to an award operate as an automatic
stay even without an order of the court, thereby encouraging many parties to file
petitions under that provision to delay the execution proceedings. However, under the
1940 Act, there was no such automatic stay. There is an amendment proposed by the
Law Ministry in the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2003, which has not
been taken up for consideration by the Parliament.
• The 1996 Act narrows down the scope of grounds available for challenging awards as
compared to the earlier 1940 Act. However, with gradual judicial interpretation, the
scope of appeal against an award under the 1996 Act has become broader particularly
after the decision of the ONGC case,50 which has widened the ambit of ‘public policy.’
Violation of public policy of India is one of the grounds for challenge of an award under
the 1996 Act.51 The ONGC case, undoubtedly, invited substantial criticism from the
legal circles and fraternity. While some large corporations and bodies welcomed the
decision, most of the members of the legal profession disagreed and stated that the 1996
Act will in effect become ‘old wine in new bottle’, because under the 1940 Act, it was
easy to set aside awards only on the basis of public policy.
