The legislative intent of Section 34 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 requires a satisfactory and credible explanation for the delay in re-filing petitions, and a delay exceeding the permissible period would be rigorously scrutinized and not condoned without a valid explanation.

1. This is an application by the Petitioner seeking condonation of delay in re-filing the petition being OMP No. 382 of 2006 under Section 34 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (‘Act’).

2. The facts relevant to the present application are that the impugned Award was passed on 21st February 2006. According to the Petitioner, it received a copy of the Award on 28th February 2006. In terms of Section 34 (3) of the Act, the petition for setting aside the Award had to be filed within three months from the date of receipt of the Award. Admittedly, the OMP was filed within time on nd May 2006.

OMP No. 382 of 2006 Page 1 of 7

3. The petition was scrutinized and the following defects were pointed out by the Registry:

(i) Court fee of Rs. 20/-be affixed;

(ii) No annexures filed with the petition;

(iii) Vakalatnama not filed; and

(iv) index should be properly paginated.

4. It appears that the petition was collected from the Registry and re-filed by the Petitioner first on 30th May 2006 without curing the above objections. The noting of the Registry on the file of 30th May 2006 was that “all above objections are still pending”. Then for the second time the petition was re-filed on 5th July 2006. The noting on file of 6th July 2006 reads “all above objections are still not removed”. For the third time, the petition was re-filed by the Petitioner on 27th July 2006. The noting on file of 30th July 2006 added another objection “the application seeking condonation of delay for re-filing be filed.”

5. It requires to be noticed at this stage that as per the original scrutiny report, the objections were to be removed and the petition re-filed within one week of the Registry pointing out the defects. It is stated by Mr. Jaswinder Singh, learned counsel for the Petitioner that this rule is not rigorously applied by the Registry and usually an application for condonation of delay for re-filing is required to be filed only where the delay in re-filing is beyond 30 days. Be that OMP No. 382 of 2006 Page 2 of 7 as it may, in the present case, the re-filing for the fourth time took place on 18th August 2006 together with an application for condonation of delay.

6. A perusal of the said application, i.e., IA No. 9086 of 2006 reveals that it is some kind of an omnibus application which is captioned as an application for “exemption from filing the typed copies of dim annexures”. In fact, para 3 talks of dim annexures and para 4 about inadequate left margins. Para 5 of the application states: “It is also prayed that this Hon’ble Court may condone delay, if any, in re-filing of the accompanying OMP.” Para 6 again talks of dim annexures and inadequate left margins. Prayers (a) and (b) are to the same effect. Prayer (c) reads: “Condone delay, if any, in re-filing of the accompanying OMP, if any.”

7. In effect, therefore, there is absolutely no explanation whatsoever in the application for the delay in re-filing the OMP.

8. Although the Registry has not computed the actual delay in re-filing, it should be computed from one week after 23rd May 2006, i.e., 30th May 2006 till th August 2006. This is over 75 days.

9. The question that now arises is whether the above delay in re-filing should be OMP No. 382 of 2006 Page 3 of 7 condoned. Mr. Jaswinder Singh, learned counsel for the Petitioner urges that the delay in re-filing is not considerable and ought to be condoned. To make up for the absence of an explanation in the application for the delay in re-filing, learned counsel for the Petitioner prays that one more opportunity should be given to the Petitioner to file an affidavit to explain the delay. He relies on the decision of the Supreme Court in Indian Statistical Institute v. M/s. Associated Builder UJ (SC) 1977 805 to urge that the application for condonation of delay in re-filing should not be rigorously scrutinized. He submits that as long as the main petition is within time, the subsequent re-filing would relate back to the date of the origi