The court emphasized the arbitrability of disputes and the appointment of a sole arbitrator under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

ORDER

Chandra Dhari Singh, J. (Oral)

1. The instant petition under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 has been filed on behalf of petitioner seeking the following reliefs:

"a. Appoint Retd. Justice Sh. Kailash Gambhir, HMJ, High Court of Delhi as the Sole Arbitrator as per Section 11 of Arbitration and Conciliation Act,1996; and

b. Direct that costs of the proceedings be awarded in favor of the Petitioner; and

c. Pass such other and further order(s) as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and appropriate for the proper adjudication of this case in the favor of the Petitioner and against the Respondent."

2. The Petitioner is a Telecom Group working in VAS Infrastructure and Applications catering to requirements across technologies like GSM, CDMA, 4G/LTE, & Enterprise mobile apps in the Indian and APAC Market. It is engaged in the business of providing Telecom Solutions, IT Services, Enterprise Applications, Solution Designing and Development, Mobile Applications, Wi-Fi Monetization & Management Solutions, Data Processing, E-Governance Applications, System Integration and Consultancy Services and carrying out end-to-end application development and management of the systems and solutions.

3. The Respondent is involved in providing IT solutions by delivering an enterprise's entire collection of hardware, software, networks, data centre facilities and related equipments used to build, test, operate, monitor, manage and support IT Services. It provides the communication path and services between users, processes, applications, services and external networks.

4. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of petitioner submitted that the Petitioner and Respondent entered into two Agreements dated 11th June, 2018 and 7th August, 2018 for sale and purchase of IT Goods and various Purchase Orders (POs) whereby the Respondent was to supply IT Hardware (Cambium make-Outdoor Wireless Equipment/ Dual Band Outdoor Access Points, Model-cnPilot E500 & E510 along with CnMaestro Management System) and any other additional license/ IP related to the functioning and usage of contracted items on placing of PO's and tendering of payment regarding the same by the Petitioner.

5. It is stated that the Petitioner raised PO's of specified dates, description of IT Goods and quantities for which the Respondent was bound to supply as per terms of the Agreements and said PO's. However, the Respondent failed in supplying the same in accordance with the terms of the PO's as wells as the Agreement.

6. It is stated that the Petitioner duly tendered payments of the PO's, thus fulfilling its part of the Agreements. However, despite receiving complete payments, the Respondent failed to supply requisite goods with full-fledged Licenses which has resulted in huge financial loss to the Petitioner and further left the Petitioner in a vulnerable standing in the trading community by placing the business and reputation of the Petitioner in jeopardy.

7. It is submitted that the Respondent repeatedly gave the Petitioner "Trial Version" licenses, breaching the Agreements. The Respondent has extended the "Trial Version" license term restriction for years, keeping the Petitioner in limbo. The delivery of the same forms an integral part of the whole deliverable as per the agreed terms of the said Agreements and PO's issued thereunder to the Respondent. The Respondent is thus using unfair commercial tactics to maintain acquiring unjustified business.

8. It is stated that the Respondent has failed to provide the facility of 'Zero Touch Provisioning & Mesh Functionality' which was a part of deliverables as per Terms and Conditions mentioned in each PO which was accepted by the Respondent.

9. It is further submitted that the said Agreements encompass an Arbitration Clause at Para No. 11, to be invoked by either party to the said agreements when any dispute of any nature whatsoever arises between them.

10. It is submitted that a Legal Notice dated 06.05.2022 was issu