Law: Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Ordinance, 2011

Section: 3,4

Law: Civil Procedure Code (V of 1908)

Section: 11

Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act (XVII of 2011)--- ----Ss.3 & 4---Civil Procedure Code (V of 1908), S.11---Enforcement of arbitration agreement, petition for---Maintainability---Whether in absence of arbitral award, enforcement petition for arbitration agreement would be competent---Brief facts were that the petitioner and respondent companies executed a Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement containing an arbitration clause with London as the seat; after the respondent issued a termination notice, the petitioner filed civil suit instead of commencing arbitration; the Civil Court stayed the suit and referred the dispute to arbitration; following dismissal of the petitioner s writ petition and intra-court appeal, the petitioner filed the present enforcement petition under S. 3 of the 2011 Act seeking recognition of the arbitration agreement and interim relief---Pivotal question requiring determination in the present matter was as to whether, in the absence of an arbitral award, the High Court could invoke S. 3 of the 2011 Act to enforce a foreign-seated arbitration agreement and grant interim relief? ---Held: Section 3 vested exclusive jurisdiction in the High Court over matters arising under the Act, 2011; however, it did not create an independent cause of action nor confer the right to enforce an arbitration agreement in the absence of an arbitral award---In the present case, the petitioner, having neither voluntarily initiated arbitration nor complied with the Civil Court s order, could not circumvent S. 4 adjudication by invoking S. 3---Any attempt to do so would have amounted to an indirect relitigation of a matter already conclusively decided, in contravention of settled principles of law---Having already pursued civil proceedings on the same cause and simultaneously claiming to have invoked arbitration, the petitioner could not be permitted to re-agitate the matter under S. 3 of the Act of 2011---On this ground, the doctrine of res judicata fully applied---The petitioner, having filed its request for arbitration under the ICC Rules, had unequivocally elected to pursue its remedies before the arbitral…