JUDGMENT :

YASHWANT VARMA, J.

1. This petition preferred under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [Act] assails the validity of an award dated 31 January 2022. Undisputedly, the petition was preferred and filed before the Registry of the Court on 28 May 2022. The various defects which were pointed out by the Registry from time to time and details whereof shall be set forth in the subsequent parts of this order were ultimately removed on 13 July 2022.

2. The petition came up for initial consideration before a learned Judge of the Court on 15 July 2022. The record would bear out that the petitioner had filed I.A. No. 10796/2022 seeking condonation of twelve days delay in the refiling of the petition. The said application came to be allowed on the said date. Subsequently and when the matter was taken up before the Court on 14 October 2022, learned counsel for the respondent pressed an application numbered as I.A. No. 16763/2022 seeking recall of the order dated 15 July 2022 in terms of which I.A. No. 10796/2022 had come to be allowed.

3. The Court noticed the objections raised with it being contended at the behest of the respondent that the petition was not only barred by time in the course of refiling, it was per se filed after the period of limitation as prescribed in respect of a petition under Section 34 of the Act. Accordingly, it was urged that the plea of delay be kept open to be urged at the time of final hearing. The aforesaid prayer was granted with the learned Judge observing that the assertion that the presentation of the petition on 28 May 2022 was liable to be viewed as a “non est filing” would be kept open.

4. Along with the application numbered as I.A. No. 16763/2022, the respondent has filed the refiling history of the petition. The aforesaid refiling history would indicate that on 04 July 2022 as many as twenty-one objections had come to be recorded. Objection No. 21 would indicate that the Registry noted that no court fee had been paid nor had the one-time process fee been submitted. It further recorded that a copy of the award had also not been filed. Objection No. 6 set forth the defect of the Statement of Truth having not been filed in terms of the provisions contained in the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 [The 2015 Act] and insofar as they would apply to an arbitration proceeding relating to a commercial dispute of a specified value.

5. When the petition was thereafter presented before the Registry again on or about 04 July 2022, further objections came to be noted on 07 July 2022. The aforesaid objections are thereafter stated to have been attended to and removed and presented again. On 13 July 2022, the Registry noted that as against the original filing of the petition running over a mere 57 pages, 287 additional pages had been filed on 07 July 2022, a petition running over 903 pages presented thereafter and ultimately on 13 July 2022 a petition comprising of 911 pages came to be filed. The refiling history is extracted herein-below: