The jurisdiction of the court under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 to adjudicate the Award and order passed under Section 34 of the said Act is narrow and circumscribed.

JUDGMENT :

Siddharth Mridul, J.

The present appeal under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [hereinafter referred as ‘the said Act’] read with Section 13 of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, has been instituted on behalf of the appellant praying as follows:—

• Set-aside impugned order dated 14/12/2021 passed by an Hon'ble Single Judge of this Hon'ble Court and set-aside the Arbitration Award dated 24/06/2021 passed the Arbitral Tribunal in the arbitration proceedings between the Appellant and the Respondents;

• Pass such other orders as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit.

2. At the outset, it is relevant to observe that, the petition under Section 34 of the said Act assailed an Arbitral Award dated 24th June, 2021; whereby the appellant (Claimant before the learned Arbitrator) was directed to pay mesne profits/damages for over-staying his tenancy in a rental premises, at the rate of Rs. 1,00,000 per month w.e.f., April, 2013 to November, 2020, along with cost of proceedings of Rs. 6,00,000/-, and interest at the rate of 12% per annum from the date of passing of the Award till the time the entire amount is paid.

3. In view of the foregoing, and in the backdrop of the limited controversy between the parties, it would be appropriate to extract in extenso the observations made by the learned Single Judge in the impugned judgment dated 14.12.2021. The relevant paragraphs of the impugned judgment are extracted hereinbelow:—

“6. This Court has considered the submissions of the counsel and does not find any merit in the same. The license period came to an end on 17th January, 2013 whereafter, the Petitioner call upon the Respondent to renew the agreement for a further period of three years, which request was rejected by the Respondent. The Petitioner was then called upon to vacate the premises, however, despite the expiry of the agreement by efflux of time, the Petitioner failed to do so and instead invoked arbitration. Proceedings before the sole arbitrator thus commenced. Respondent contested the proceedings and filed a counter-claim for possession and mesne profits. In such circumstances, the objection of non-arbitrability of disputes was rightly rejected by the learned Arbitrator, in the following words:

“19. I have considered the rival contentions of the parties. First of all, I am of the view that the judgments referred to and relied upon by learned counsel for the claimant are in the context of different facts and are of no help. In the said cases landlords/lessors had filed suits for recovery of possession, mesne profits and damages on expiry of lease period/tenancy; wherein applications were filed by the tenants/lessees under section 8 of the Act thereby invoking the arbitration clause. In these facts, it was held that arbitration clause could have been invoked during the subsistence of tenancy/lease and not thereafter. In the present case claimant had invoked the arbitration clause way back in the year 2013. The respondent appointed the Arbitrator and the proceedings commenced, in as much as filed SOC. In the pending arbitration, in my view, respondent was well within its rights to file a counter claim seeking possession and award of mesne profits/damages as well as water and electricity charges; while opposing the relief of extension of license period. In fact, the claimant is estopped from challenging the arbitrability of the Counter Claim of the respondent. The reliefs claimed by the respondent were consequential to the reliefs claimed by the claimant; thus, respondent cannot be relegated to other independent proceeding before a different forum, in order to avoid multiplicity of proceedings and conflicting judgments; in the same facts between the same parties.

7. In support of this observation, Arbitrator has also relied upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in Vidya Drolia v. Durga Trading Corporation, (2021) 2 SCC 1, and held that the dispute regarding mesne profits after the expiry of the term of the license