The provisions of Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 are mandatory, and the court adopted a stricter scrutiny for condonation of delay in re-filing petitions under Section 34, emphasizing the need for a satisfactory and credible explanation for the delay.

MANMOHAN SINGH, J.

I.A.No.256/2013 (for condonation of delay of 188 days in re-filing the petition)

1. The abovementioned objection petition has been filed by the petitioner under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (in short, called the “Act”) against Claims No.1 to 16 awarded in favour of the respondent by Award dated 19th January, 2012 passed by the sole Arbitrator. The award was sent by the ICADR vide letter dated 14th February, 2012. It was received by the petitioner on 16th February, 2012.

2. Along with the petition, the petitioner filed an application under Section 151 CPC for condonation of delay of 188 days in re-filing the petition. The first ground for such delay stated in the application is that the working of the chamber of the counsel for the petitioner was disturbed because of the unfortunate death of the son of his Associate, Ms.Anita Sharma, Advocate, due to which she did not join the office for four months. The second reason given by the counsel is that the other Associate, Mr.Rajinder Kaushik working in the office also stopped coming to the office towards the end of the month of May due to his personal reasons and he could join the chamber only in the beginning of October. The third ground given by the petitioner is that the counsel engaged the services of a Steno, Ms.Sunita Sharma who was not very experienced to work on the computer. The typing work had to be redone as the work done was lost due to some problem in the computer. The fourth reason alleged in the application is that in the month of July, 2012, the brother-in-law of the counsel, Mr.Vinod Jain was diagnosed with tumor in the hip region of the type of causing blood cancer. It was also stated in the application that the wife of the counsel had passed away six years ago and due to such abnormal tragedies one after the other, the normal working in the chamber of the counsel could not take place, due to which it took such time to arrange and compile more than 100 pages in five volumes of the petition. Therefore, the prayer is made for condonation of delay of 188 days in re-filing of the petition.

3. The application is strongly opposed by the respondent. According to the respondent, the delay is not of 188 days, but 233 days and such delay in re-filing cannot be condoned.

4. The learned counsel for the respondent has referred the following judgments in support of his submissions:-

(i) Delhi Transco Ltd. & Anr. Vs. Hythro Engineers Pvt. Ltd., 2012(6) R.A.J. 299 (Del.), the relevant paragraphs of which read as under:-

8. The Division Bench in Shree Ram Construction Co. (supra) (which, we may note has been upheld by the Supreme Court with the dismissal of the SLPs) in para 29 and 41 observed as follows:

“29. Reliance on the decision in Improvement Trust, Ludhiana Vs. Ujagar Singh, (2010) 6 SCC 786 to the effect that “justice can be done only when the matter is fought on merits and in accordance with law rather than to dispose it off on such technicalities and that too at the threshold” is of no avail in the backdrop of the A&C Act which decidedly and calculatedly shuts off curial discretion after the expiry of thirty days beyond three months having elapsed from the date on which a copy of the Award had been received by the appealing party. In the context of the A&C Act, it appears to us that liberality in condoning delay in refiling would run counter to the intention of Parliament which has employed plain language to facially prescribe a cut-off date beyond which there is no latitude for condonation of delay. And this is for very good reason. Across the Globe, it has been accepted that there is a pressing need to bring adjudicatory proceedings to a prompt and expeditious conclusion, especially where commercial and business conflicts arise. We think it wholly impermissible to extend or expand the time for concluding judicial proceedings at the second stage, that is, that of refiling, when this is impermissible at the very initi