JUDGMENT :

1. This petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [for short ‘the Act’] assails an arbitral Award dated 19th June, 2020, which is a domestic award in an international commercial arbitration, rendered by a Sole Arbitrator.

2. In the arbitral proceedings, the respondent (original claimant) had raised a claim against the petitioner for an amount of USD 2,64,491 along with interest at the rate of 18% per annum from January, 2014 till payment or realization. The respondent also claimed USD 1,00,000 for loss of business, loss of reputation and loss of opportunity.

3. The dispute between the parties had arisen under a contract dated 3 August, 2007 involving services to be provided by the respondent for ‘lodging, sighting and allied facilities in Thailand’, under which the respondent was to take care of the petitioner’s customers, touring Thailand. The arbitral tribunal after hearing the parties on their respective contentions, has passed the following operative award:-

“(A) The Respondent is directed to make payment of USD 157931.8 to the Claimant against Claim No.1 along with interest at the rate of 18% p.a. from 1st September, 2014 till the date of the Award.

(B) Claim No.2 is rejected.

(C) The Respondent is directed to make payment of Rs.24,17,871/- (Rupees Twenty-Four Lakhs Seventeen Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventy-One) to the Claimant towards actual costs and Rs.1 Lakh towards exemplary costs along with interest at the rate of 18% p.a. from the date of the Award till payment and/or realization.”

4. The factual antecedents in relation to the disputes can be noted. The petitioner is a company incorporated under the laws of India, whereas the respondent company was registered under the laws of Thailand in 2009.

5. The case of the respondent/claimant was to the effect that the respondent is engaged in the business of providing travel, tourism and logistic services. The petitioner also is engaged in the same business and was offering tourism packages in India for domestic and international locations. It was the respondent’s case that between 2009-2013, the petitioner had availed the respondent’s services in arrangement of lodging, sighting and allied facilities in Thailand by requiring the respondent to cater to the petitioner’s customers touring Thailand. The tours and travels as offered by the respondent were broadly divided into four groups, namely “summer/winter series”, “summer (series)”, “ad-hoc group VIP” and “FIT”. These tours comprised of different fares and itineraries. Out of these tours the bulk activity was under the category of summers to winter (series).

6. The respondent contended that the parties had a principal to principal relationship and no third party intermediary was involved of any part of the transaction. The business communication between the parties was mostly by email and telephone. The respondent contended that for the services offered by the respondent to the petitioner, the respondent raised invoices from time to time, of which the petitioner was making ad-hoc payments partly discharging the amounts due and payable on different outstanding invoices. The respondent contended that there was a running account between the parties and after adjustment of payments made by the petitioner and received by the respondent, as per the invoices, for the different category of tours between the period 2010-2013, a principal sum of USD 264,491 was due and payable by the petitioner to the respondent.

7. As the petitioner had failed to make payment of the said amounts, which according to the respondent were admittedly due and payable to the respondent under the contract, the respondent approached this Court by filing Company Petition No. 1057 of 2015 against the petitioner seeking a relief that the petitioner be wound up, as the petitioner was unable to pay its debts. In such proceed