R.D. DHANUKA, J.

1. By petition filed under section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 the petitioners who were the original claimants before the learned arbitrator, the petitioners have impugned the order dated 5th December, 2016 passed by the learned arbitrator accepting the plea of the jurisdiction raised by the respondent nos.1 to 6 in Case Nos.6 to 10 of 2015 before the learned arbitrator and holding that the learned arbitrator did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate the disputes raised by the petitioners relating to the parties other than the parties to respective 6 Subscription cum Shareholders Agreements dated 18th October, 2008.

2. The learned arbitrator has ordered the deletion of the claimant nos.1, 2, 3, 4 and respondent nos.2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 from the array of parties and further directing the claimants to either file an amended statement of claim within four weeks from December 2016 by deleting those parties and confine their claims disputes arising from Subscription cum Shareholders Agreements dated 18th October, 2008 or to file a fresh statement of claim within the said period. The respondents to these petitions were the respondents in the arbitral proceedings. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as arrayed in the statement of claim in the later part of this judgment.

3. Since all the parties have addressed this Court in Commercial Arbitration Petition No.13 of 2017 arising out of Case No.5 of 2015 and have agreed that the outcome of the said commercial petition would decide the remaining 24 petitions. The facts in the said Case No.5 of 2012 and the arguments advanced by the learned counsel for the parties therein are summarized and are dealt with in the later part of this judgment.

Case of the Claimants is as under :-

4. There are two groups which had entered into the subject agreements and had formed Special Purpose Vehicles. The Neelkanth Group (NG) of which the claimants are a part and another group is Urban Group (UG/Urban Group) of which some of the respondents are part is owned and controlled by Mr.Anand Jain. Insofar as the Neelkanth Group is concerned, the same is owned and controlled by Patel family. The respondent no.1 is 100% subsidiary of the respondent no.5 i.e. Jai Corporation Limited and is also an Investment Manager to the respondent no.1 i.e. Urban Infrastructure Trustee Limited and the respondent no.3 i.e. Urban Infrastructure Venture Capital Fund and the Indian Investment Advisor to the respondent no.2 i.e. Urban Infrastructure Real Estate Fund.

5. The respondent no.2 is Overseas Private Equity Fund incorporated under the bye-laws prevailing in Republic of Mauritius having separate and independent investment activities. The respondent no.1 is its Indian Investment Advisor and represented it in all dealings with the Neelkanth Group. The respondent no.3 is a Domestic Fund established in the form of a trust and registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India as a Venture Capital fund under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Venture Capital Funds) Regulations, 1996 by the respondent as the Settlor. The respondent no.1 is its Indian Investment Advisor and represented it in all dealings with the Neelkanth Group.

6. The respondent no.1 is the trustee company of its domestic fund. The respondent no.5 is another lead company of the Urban Group holding the company of the respondent no.1. The respondent no.6 is another company of Urban Group. Dharti Investments and Holdings Private Limited and Vinamra Universal Traders Private Limited are other companies of the said Urban Group. Urban Group was in all the dealings with the Neelkanth Group was represented by Mr. Parag Parekh and/or Mr. Anand Jain and all decisions relating to the projects were taken by a Managing Committee formed by both groups. Till 2013, no board meetings of various Special Purpose Vehicles were formally held and the minutes of meeting were merely recorded based on these d