The main legal point established is that the non-competition clause in the Joint Venture Agreement applied only to specific parties and did not extend to all parties involved. Additionally, the court clarified the jurisdictional requirements for entertaining applications under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act.

By this order I shall dispose of this application/petition under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, made by the petitioner against the three respondents. The petitioner had entered into a Joint Venture Agreement (in short 'JVA') with respondent no. 2 on 20th December, 1988. The relevant clauses of the agreement read as under :

DEFINITIONS

1.1 The term "PRODUCTS" as used in the joint venture agreement means the products which are shown on the attached Annex 'A' and which UFS plans to manufacture and sell.

5. NON-COMPETITION WITH THE BUSINESS OF UFS

During the term of this agreement each of the parties hereto agrees not to manufacture, have manufactured or sell, have sold, in India any types of products which are the same as the PRODUCTS for which MIC gives technical know-how to UFS under the collaboration agreements. This obligation is binding on subsidiaries, affiliated companies and holding companies of both parties.

9.0 CONFIDENTIALITY

Each party hereto agrees to keep strictly confidential information acquired from the other parties or from UFS under this agreement. Both parties also agree not to disclose such information to any third party.

Such secrecy obligation shall survive termination of this agreement and thereafter until such information is made public by any third party or parties other than CL, MIC, and UFS.

The agreement was between petitioner and respondent no. 2 and countersigned by respondent no. 1. It is stated by the petitioner that respondent no. 1 was attempting to defeat the petitioner's rights under the JVA by trying to enter into a collaboration/tie-up with respondent no. 3 and respondent no. 1 was attempting to indirectly obtain the approval of the board of directors of respondent no. 1 to surpass petitioner's objection against the collaboration agreement. It is stated that respondent no. 1 had obtained technology to manufacture Carburettors as well as the Housing and machine cast and without paying for the petitioner's technology, it was attempting to use the same to help a competitor. It is also stated that respondent no. 3 had also approached petitioner to provide them with the technology to manufacture Air Intake Charge Throttle Body Housing (cast and machined) and ETC 5 Housing (cast and machined) and this request of respondent no. 3 was declined by the petitioner. Since respondent no. 3 was unable to obtain technology from the petitioner, the respondent no. 3 devised a method to indirectly obtain this technology from respondent no. 1 & 2. Respondent no. 3 intends to manufacture similar products using the current manufacturing facility of respondent no. 1, developed with the technical expertise provided by the petitioner, so that they can quickly enter the auto-component market in India. It is stated that in order to achieve this, a re-organization of the respondent no. 1 is on the cards and by this re-organization, respondent no. 3 is sought to be inducted into the management of respondent no. 1 through back door. It is also stated that petitioner apprehends that respondent no. 1 is attempting to set up a competing plant/facility for Siemens i.e. Respondent No. 3 either directly or indirectly (at the facility or with the collaboration of UCAL Machine Tools Limited), which is in clear violation of the petitioner's right under the JVA, despite the fact that petitioner has not given its consent to respondents no. 1 & 2 and respondents no. 1 & 2 were proceeding with the proposed JVA with Siemens. Reliance is placed on clause 16 in the JVA which provides for arbitration and reads as under :

16. ARBITRATION

All disputes, controversies or differences which may arise between the parties, out of or in connection with this agreement, shall be settled in good faith by the parties hereto. If any such matter cannot be settled by the parties, the matter shall be referred to the arbitration of the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association if such matter is raised by CL [i.e., Respondent N