The main legal point established in the judgment is the court's authority to grant injunctions under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 to protect the subject matter of arbitration pending the resolution of the dispute through arbitration.

1. The petitioner claims injunction under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 against respondent No.1 who is the trust and respondent Nos. 2 to 7 who are trustees of respondent No.1 trust pending the arbitration invoked by the petitioner against selling, mortgaging, transferring, encumbering, alienating, disposing of or creating any third party rights or granting any development right or parting with possession of the property called Nawab House/Nhava House, 65, Maharishi Karve Road, Mumbai – 400 002.

2. The parties have entered into a development agreement on 9th April, 2005 pursuant to the trustees of respondent No.1 Trust having passed a resolution by majority in terms of the deed of trust under which they are appointed inter alia for executing such agreement.

3. A resolution has been passed in the meeting of the Trustees dated 9th September, 2004. There are six trustees of respondent No.1 trust. Respondent Nos. 2 to 6 attended the meeting. The respondent No.7 was absent despite notice. All the respondents who attended the meeting except respondent No.6 agreed to execute the development agreement.

4. The development agreement dated 8th April, 2005 was in fact executed by respondent Nos. 2 to 5 who received the earnest of Rs. 5 lakhs thereunder. The agreement recited the possession of the owners, the suit filed against the illegal occupant of the disputed premises for eviction and the fact that the building was in a dilapidated and highly dangerous condition and on the verge of collapse. It appeared that the respondent No.7 was not agreeable to settle with the petitioner to develop and accordingly it is recited that the petitioner represented to and assured the owners that it would be in a position to arrive at a settlement with respondent No.7 as also another illegal occupant (with whom the dispute has since been settled) to commence the development.

5. Under clause 2 of the said development agreement respondent Nos. 2 to 6 being the owners declared that they had notified the petitioner as the developer that the petitioner is granted development rights under the said agreement subject to the order of this Court. If the order has not been obtained or if this Court refused or declined to pass the order, the agreement was to stand cancelled and terminated without any claim of the developers against the owners for the costs incurred by the developers of the development.

6. The agreement sets out the separate and specific rights of two of the trustees in clause 2(e).

7. Clause 2(b) specifies that 11 flats and 4 car parking spaces to be provided to the respondents.

8. Under clause 4(a) the petitioner was to settle with the illegal occupant (which has since been settled at Rs.1.32 crores).

9. Under clause 4(b) the petitioner was to be responsible and liable to settle and compromise with respondent No.7 who is stated to be in occupation of a tenanted premises.

10. Under clause 8(a)(i) Rs.5 lakhs is paid as the earnest and Rs.5 lakhs has to be paid within seven days of the grant of the order of this Court sanctioning the grant of development rights under the agreement.

11. Under clause 8(b) if the Court failed or refused sanction within 36 months the earnest amount would have to be refunded.

12. There are various other covenants to be performed by the parties to the development agreement with which we are at present not concerned. The development agreement was executed by the aforesaid four trustees respondent Nos. 2 to 5. In this petition, however, all the trustees, the trustees who then agreed to develop the suit property as also the trustees who even all the time did not so agree have together claimed refusal and inability to develop on various grounds which must be considered separately thus:

(I). Development Agreement expired by afflux of time:

13. The respondents claim that the agreement has expired and the arbitration invoked thereunder has become infructuous and have consequently resisted the peti