ARUNA SURESH, J.

This petition under section 12 and 14 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as "Act") has been filed by the petitioner seeking revocation of mandate of the sole arbitrator Shri W. D. Dandage appointed by respondent No. 1 in accordance with the arbitration clause 9.2 of the General Conditions of the Contract.

Petitioner is an engineering and designing construction company. It entered into an agreement dated 8th April, 1994 with respondent No. 1 for executing the work of construction of car parking basement at HUDCO Place, Khelgaon, Andrewsganj, New Delhi. A dispute arose regarding the payments claimed by the petitioner for the work executed by it which were not released by respondent No. 1. Petitioner invoked the arbitration clause of the agreement vide letter dated 26th April, 2004 to the appointing authority for reference of the dispute having arisen between the parties to arbitration and also requesting the petitioner to appoint an arbitrator. This letter also included the points of dispute in reference. Consequently, respondent No. 1 appointed Mr. L. R. Gupta, Ex. DG, CPWD as the sole arbitrator to enter into reference and decide the dispute which had arisen between the petitioner and respondent No. 1. However, Mr. L. R. Gupta vide his letter dated 15th June, 2004 declined to accept the appointment. Therefore, petitioner sent another letter dated 21st June, 2004 requesting respondent No. 1 for appointment of another arbitrator. Respondent No. 1 accordingly appointed Mr. W. D. Dandage, respondent No. 2 as the sole arbitrator vide letter dated 29th June, 2004.

Mr. W. D. Dandage as a sole arbitrator had adjudicated an earlier dispute between the same parties pertaining to the work "Construction of Guest Houses Cluster "B" at HUDCO Place, Andrews Gunj, New Delhi". Award pronounced in the said proceedings by the said arbitrator has been challenged by the petitioner and the objections are pending adjudication. Under these circumstances, the petitioner has alleged that he has a strong apprehension that the arbitral tribunal would be carrying a pre-conceived notion with colours of biasness against the petitioner particularly in the context that the earlier award suffered from inherent colour of biasness which resulted in the gross miscarriage of justice. The petitioner therefore forwarded his objections to the appointment of respondent No. 2 as the sole arbitrator vide letter dated 1st July, 2004 and requested for change of the arbitrator. Before petitioner could get reply from respondent No. 1, it received notice from respondent No. 2 informing it that he had fixed the matter for 17.07.2004 as the date for holding preliminary hearing and also called upon the parties to provide immediate an Executive Class air ticket for journey to and fro from Delhi to Pune as respondent No. 2 is a resident of Pune.

Petitioner thereafter filed his objection application before the Arbitral Tribunal under section 13(2) of the Act containing his objections to the appointment of respondent No. 2 as the sole arbitrator for the reasons of his apprehension of biasness. This application was dismissed by the sole arbitrator vide detailed order dated 21st July, 2004 certifying that neither at the time of the appointment as sole arbitrator in the present case nor thereafter any circumstances existed which is likely to give rise to justifiable doubts as to his independence and impartiality to decide the dispute referred to him by the CMD HUDCO.

Aggrieved, the petitioner has filed the present petition before this court seeking the termination of mandate of respondent No. 2 and appointment of any other person as an arbitrator, may be a person having engineering background and is on the panel of Indian Council of Arbitration.

Respondent No. 1 has contested this objection petition on the following grounds :-

(a) The present petition for revocation of mandate is not maintainable and is an abuse of process o