The main legal point established in the judgment is that non-signatories to arbitral agreements can be referred to arbitration in exceptional cases with a commonality of subject matter, as indicated by precedents and principles.

JUDGMENT

Sanjeev Narula, J. - The present petitions have been filed under Sections 11(3) and (4) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [hereinafter, "the Act"] seeking appointment of an Arbitrator for adjudication of disputes, arising out of a Registered Lease Deed dated 5th May, 2015 [hereinafter, "Registered Lease Deeds"] executed between the lessor/Petitioner herein - Haryana State Cooperative Supply And Marketing Federation Limited [hereinafter, "HAFED'], and lessee/Respondent No. 1 - Indo Arya Logistics [hereinafter, IAL"] in relation to HAFED Warehouse, Inner Ring Road, Near Wazirpur, DTC Depot, Delhi [hereinafter, Leased Premises"]. The Registered Lease Deed contains an arbitration clause, which reads as under:

"4. ARBITRATION

All disputes and difference arising out of or in any way touching upon or concerning this agreement of lease whatsoever shall be referred to the sole arbitration of Managing Director, Hafed or his nominee whose decision shall be final and binding on both the parties.

2. Before proceeding, it must be noted that though HAFED and Indo Arya Logistics are common parties to all the petitions, Respondents No. 2 in each of the petitions are separate and distinct entities, which have apparently entered into separate, unregistered Lease Deeds with Indo Arya Logistics [hereinafter, "Unregistered Lease Deeds"] and are presently in occupation of certain portion of the Leased Premises. For clarity's sake, a tabulation setting out such details of each petition is given below:

3. At the outset, Mr. Bharat Bhushan Gupta, counsel for IAL, states that he has no objection to the prayer made in the petitions, while reserving IAL's liberty to raise claims against HAFED as well as the Sub-Lessees. In fact, he supports HAFED's request seeking appointment of an Arbitrator to adjudicate disputes also against the Sub-Lessees in all the petitions. This statement made by Mr. Gupta is taken on record.

4. On the other hand, Mr. Sidhant Bhatia, counsel for all the Sub Lessees, contests the maintainability of the present petitions qua them. In this view of the matter, the only aspect that requires to be adjudicated is whether Sub-Lessees, who are non-signatory to the Registered Lease Deed, should also be referred to arbitration.

5. On this aspect, the Court has heard the counsel for the parties at length. HAFED's case is that the Registered Lease Deed executed with IAL categorically prohibited any sub-letting, assignment or parting with the possession of the Leased Premises. In this regard, reliance is placed on Clause 4, which reads as under:

"4. To use the demised premises by the lessee as its warehouse and shall in no case whatsoever sub-let, assign or otherwise part with possession of a part or whole of the premises hereby demised and also not to avail the loan facility by way of mortgage/pledge of the above premises against the lease from any person, bank, financial institution under any circumstances. However, The Lessee shall be free to do business of warehousing, Cold Storage/Logistics/Transport/C&F work and allied service like grading, sorting, mechanized packing of staples/agro products etc. for their various customers. Indo Arya Logistics shall apply for packing License at their own cost and shall be required to ensure compliance of labour Jaws and other statutory requirements at their end." [Emphasis supplied]

6. However, it appears that in contravention to the above, IAL executed the three Unregist