The main legal point established in the judgment is the limited scope of the Court's jurisdiction to interfere with the arbitral award and the principle that the Arbitrator is the ultimate master of the quantity and quality of evidence to be relied upon when delivering the arbitral award.

JUDGMENT

Sanjeev Narula, J. - CM APPL. 25565/2020 (for exemption)

1. Exemption allowed, subject to just exceptions.

2. The application is disposed of.

CM APPL.25564/2020 (for condonation of delay)

3. For the reasons stated in the application, the delay of 8 days in filing the present appeal is condoned.

4. The application stands disposed of accordingly.

FAO (OS) (COMM) 125/2020 & CM APPL. 25563/2020 (for Ad Interim stay)

5. This is an appeal under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred as "A&C Act") read with Section 13 of the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act, 2015 against the impugned final order and judgment dated 16th March, 2020 passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court, whereby the objections filed by the Appellant under Section 34 of the A&C Act against the arbitral award dated 15th October 2019, passed by the learned Sole Arbitrator have been dismissed. By way of the award, the claims of the Respondent have been allowed.

Facts in brief

6. The facts have been noted and discussed at length both in the impugned judgment as well as the arbitral award. Therefore, for the disposal of the present appeal, we are noting only the bare essential facts, which are as follows: The Appellant, a Government of India undertaking, engaged in the business of inter alia manufacturing steel, awarded a contract for the setting up of a Coupled Pickling Line and Tandem Cold Mill at Bokaro Steel Plant to a consortium of M/s Siemens VAI Metals Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (now Primetals Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. and Respondent herein), M/s Siemens VAI Metal Technologies GmbH & Co, Austria and M/s McNally Bharat Engineering Co. Ltd. The parties entered into a contract bearing No. TC/M/AGT-963 on 3rd March, 2008, which specified the project commencement date as 3rd March, 2008 and the date of completion as 3rd September, 2010. The contract envisaged that Respondent would procure the items, as set out in the contract, from such manufacturers as identified by the Appellant and that the price of each item would include a) Basic Price, b) Excise Duty (ED) and c) Central Sales Tax (CST). The contract consisted of a summary price schedule which delineates the total amount chargeable by the Respondent and the minimum guaranteed CENVAT credit to be paid by the Respondent to the Appellant as Rs.33,06,70,252/-. During the continuation of the work under the contract, Respondent raised invoices seeking inter alia reimbursement of the input sales tax paid on purchases and of sales tax paid by sub-contractors/vendors, while executing the contractual work. The CENVAT credit passed on to the Appellant was Rs.19,70,32,185/-, as against the guaranteed amount of Rs.33,06,70,252/-. The Appellant refused to make any payment to the Respondent until necessary documents were submitted by the latter to confirm that the entire guaranteed amount towards CENVAT credit would be passed on to the Appellant. The Appellant claimed that in terms of the price schedule as set out in the contract, it was entitled to deduct the shortfall in CENVAT credit from the net contract price at serial No.15 of the summary price schedule. On the other hand, Respondent''s stance was that the deductions to the extent of shortfall in CENVAT credit could only be made from the gross contract price at serial No.12 and not from the net contract price at serial No.15. In view of the opposing stances taken by the parties, the Respondent invoked arbitration and the matter was referred to an Arbitral Tribunal comprising of a Sole Arbitrator.

7. The final award dated 15th October, 2019, was passed in favour of the Respondent, allowing all their claims. The concluding portion of the arbitral award reads as under:

"102. In the result,

(a) the claim of the principal amount Rs.2,82,73,811.35/- by way of reimbursement of CST is allowed. The sum of Rs.92,16,537.03/-, already paid by the Respondent on being adjuste