1. By consent of parties, the matters are heard finally at the admission stage.

2. Mr. Gautam Ankhad, learned counsel appearing for the respondent no.2 in the arbitration petition raises a preliminary objection about the maintainability of these arbitration petitions on the ground that none of these petitioners were parties to any arbitration agreement between the respondent no.1 and the respondent no.2 and thus cannot invoke section 37 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996. This Court however directed all the parties to address this Court on the issue of maintainability of the arbitration petitions raised by the respondent no.2 and also on the merits of these arbitration petitions. Both the parties have accordingly addressed this Court. Though this Court had heard the Notice of Motion No.628 of 2017 in Commercial Suit No.669 of 2017 filed by Karamtara Engineering Private Limited against Excel Metal Processors Private Limited & others, for sake of convenience, a separate order is passed in the said notice of motion and more particularly in view of there being no issue of maintainability of suit raised by the defendants therein.

3. By these 13 arbitration petitions filed under section 37 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (for short the “Arbitration Act”), the petitioners have prayed for leave to appeal against the order passed by the learned sole arbitrator dated 27th December, 2016 and also prayed for setting aside the said impugned order dated 17th November, 2017 granting interim measures against the respondent no.1 and in favour of the respondent no.2 which is causing prejudice to the interest of the petitioners.

4. This Court shall first summarize the facts in one of the arbitration petition which was argued as lead matter and in view of the statement made by the learned counsel for the parties that the facts in other petitions are identical, judgment in the lead matter will apply to the other petitions. The petitioner company is dealing in various steel items including steel coils. The respondent nos.1 and 3 are undisputedly sister concerns / group companies. The respondent no.1 is the parent company of the respondent no.3 and have common directors. The respondent no.2 is the original claimant in the arbitral proceedings before the sole learned arbitrator Shri Justice Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (Retd.).

5. It is the case of the petitioner that the petitioner had purchased 46 HR steel coils from (i) Win Faith Trading Limited and (ii) M/s.Hyundai Corporation. The petitioner had imported these coils from the said vendors and possessed the documents of title including the bills of entries / Mill Test Certificates / Inspection Certificate issued by the Vendors / Manufacturers. The said certificate bears the unique coil number on the basis of which each HR coils can be identified. These coil numbers are also embossed on the respective coils which makes the identification of the coils certain. The documents in possession of the petitioner contains various other details like thickness, grading, length, width, chemical composition and weight of coils.

6. Insofar as the respondent no.3 is concerned, the said party undertakes the work of slitting / cutting HR steel coils from various concerns at the warehouse at Plot No.1-3, MIDC, Taloja, Raigad District. It is the case of the petitioner that the respondent no.3 represented that the said warehouse was owned by the respondent no.1. The respondent no.1 and its directors being Mr. Mohammed Iqbal Khan and Mr. Imran Khan provided a written declaration dated 11th December, 2014 whereby the respondent no.1 declared that they are the owners of the said warehouse and that the respondent no.1 had allowed the respondent no.3 to conduct its business in the said warehouse on a no rental basis.

7. On or about 8th December, 2016, the petitioner entered into a Conducting Agreement with the respondent no.3 whereby the petitioner gave the said coils to the respondent no.3 for storing, ha