1. The present petition has been filed under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for the relief that the appointment of Justice K.S. Gupta (Retd.), the retired nominee Arbitrator, appointed by the petitioner, be upheld. The other request, which has been made by the petitioner in the present petition, is that since the respondent has already nominated his Arbitrator, pursuant to the arbitration clause and the petitioner has also appointed his nominee Arbitrator and since both the nominated arbitrators have failed to reach the consensus to appoint a Presiding Arbitrator, the Court should appoint a Presiding Arbitrator. A request has also been made to quash the notice dated 04.09.2014 of the respondent, whereby the respondent had appointed his nominated Arbitrator as a sole Arbitrator.

2. The brief facts of this case are that the petitioner and the respondent had entered into a contract which was subsequently terminated by the respondent and the respondent had raised a demand of sum of Rs.48,05,76,414/-vide their letter dated 13.02.2014. The petitioner had refuted the said liability vide their letter dated 06.03.2014. The respondent, thereafter, invoked the arbitration clause 39(2) of the agreement vide their letter dated 14.05.2014 and informed the petitioner that they had nominated Justice S.N. Aggarwal (Retd.) as their Arbitrator and called upon the petitioner to appoint its nominee Arbitrator. The arbitration clause had required the petitioner to nominate their Arbitrator within 60 days of the receipt of the notice from the respondent. However, instead of nominating their Arbitrator, the petitioner sought extension of time till 01.08.2014 on the ground that they were unable to nominate their Arbitrator due to unforeseen circumstances vide their letter dated 20.05.2014. Despite that the petitioner did not nominate his Arbitrator and wrote a letter dated 31.07.2014 seeking further time of 30 days for nominating their Arbitrator.

3. The case of the petitioner is that although they had written a letter dated 31.07.2014 seeking further extension of time, but, they had nominated Justice K.S. Gupta (Retd.) as their Arbitrator even before 02.08.2014 and also informed the respondent of this nomination vide their letter dated 02.08.2014. It is contended that despite that the respondent vide its letter dated 06.08.2014 appointed their nominee as the sole Arbitrator on the ground that the petitioner had failed to nominate its Arbitrator within 60 days in terms of clause 39(2) of the agreement. A protest letter dated 13.08.2014 was sent by the petitioner to Justice S.N. Aggarwal (Retd.), nominated Arbitrator of the respondent and also to the respondent asking them to accept the nomination of their Arbitrator. The petitioner had received a letter dated 24.08.2014 from Justice S.N. Aggarwal (Retd.), wherein it was disclosed that he had a meeting on 22.08.2014 with Justice K.S. Gupta (Retd.), nominated Arbitrator of the petitioner, but, since they could not reach to any consensus over the issue of appointment of a Presiding Arbitrator, the meeting was adjourned. In the same letter, Justice S.N. Aggarwal (Retd.) has also informed the petitioner that he had received a letter of respondent dated 06.08.2014 on 23.08.2014, whereby he had been asked to act as a sole Arbitrator. The learned Arbitrator vide its written communication fixed the date of hearing before him.

4. It is also pleaded by the petitioner that the notice of the respondent dated 14.05.2014 was actually received by them only on 20.05.2014 and, therefore, 60 days for appointment of an Arbitrator be counted from that date and those 60 days thus expired only on 20.07.2014. It is further pleaded that the petitioner understood by the silence of the respondent on their letter seeking extension of time till 01.08.2014 that the respondent had conceded to their request for extension of time till 01.08.2014. It is also contended that the respondents have now