1. An important question as to whether this Court can exercise its powers under Section 27 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for implementation of the Orders passed by the learned Arbitrators, which are not being complied with by the parties, arises for consideration before this Court.

2. The facts in brief necessary for adjudication of the present Petition are as under:

i. It appears that there was an agreement between the Petitioner and the Respondent No.1 for bottling the product of the Plaintiff. However, there arose a dispute between the parties i.e. the Plaintiff and Defendant No.1 and, as per the agreement between the parties the dispute was referred to the Arbitration. The arbitration proceedings commenced in the year 2002. There has been a change of the Arbitrators for some reasons, with respect to which there are allegations and counter allegations. However, for the purpose of adjudication of the present matter, the reference to those allegations would not be necessary and, therefore, I do not think it is necessary to go into them.

ii. During the pendency of the proceedings, the Applicant/ Petitioner had made an Application before the learned Arbitrator for direction to the Respondents for production of the certain documents, namely, Sales Tax Returns and Assessment Orders for the years 1995-96 to 2001-2002. The learned Arbitrator, Her Ladyship Hon'ble Smt. Justice Sujata Manohar (Retd.), vide order dated 27th March, 2007 though had rejected the Application filed by the present Petitioner for direction to produce the Returns, had allowed the Application with direction to the Respondent to produce the Assessment Orders. However, it appears that the said presiding officer has resigned and subsequently the matter came up for arbitration before the Arbitral Tribunal consisting of three Hon'ble Members, who are retired Hon'ble Judges, two of the Apex Court and one of this Court. It appears that since the directions as given vide order dated 27th March, 2007 were not complied with, an Affidavit was directed to be filed by the Arbitral Tribunal and accordingly an Affidavit was filed by the Respondent No. 1 on 16th September, 2011, thereby giving reasons as to why the order passed earlier by the learned Arbitrator was not complied with. As such an order came to be passed on 16th September, 2011 by the learned Arbitral Tribunal, thereby permitting the Claimants to apply to the Court to seek production of Sales Tax Assessment Orders for the period 1995-96 to 2001-2002 including Appellate Orders, if any. That is how the present matter has reached this Court.

3. Shri Shiraz Rustomjee, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the Petitioner submits that the provisions of Section 27 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred as “the Act” for short) are aimed at providing assistance to the Court for effective adjudication in the arbitration proceedings. He submits that the Court has ample powers under Section 27 of the Act to direct a party or a witness to either give evidence before the Arbitral Tribunal or to produce documents before the Arbitral Tribunal. He submits that the conduct of the Respondent is such which amounts to defying the orders passed by the Arbitral Tribunal. He further submits that not only that but the Respondent has now come with a totally contrary stand than the one which was taken by him before the Arbitral Tribunal. He submits that though it was never a case of the Respondent that the Assessment Orders were not available with it, but now in an Affidavit filed in the present proceedings a stand is taken that the Assessment Orders are not available with the Respondent. He, therefore, submits that this is a fit case wherein this Court should not only exercise the powers under sub-section 3 of Section 27 of the Act read with Rule 14 of Order 11 of the Code to issue directions to the Respondents to produce the documents as directed by the learned Tribunal but