Dr. CHANDRACHUD D.Y., J.:---Admit. Respondents waive service. By consent taken up for hearing and final disposal.

2. The question which this Court is called upon to decide in these proceedings is whether an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is empowered by the provisions of the Act to suspend the hearing of the arbitral proceedings and, in the alternate, whether the Court exercising jurisdiction under section 9 can issue a direction to that effect. Shorn at this stage of all the details to which it would nevertheless become necessary to advert during the course of the judgment, the Arbitral Tribunal by an interim direction, directed the petitioner ("MSEB") to deposit certain amounts which were permitted to be withdrawn by the respondent ("DSL") against Bank Guarantees. The Bank which had issued the Bank Guarantees extended the guarantees from time to time but then declined to renew them any further. The Guarantees were not invoked by the MSEB before expiry, as a result of a clause in the guarantees which made invocation conditional upon permission being granted by the Arbitral Tribunal to MSEB. DSL has, in the meantime, been decla