JUDGMENT

A. PRELUDE

1. The appellants question the jurisdiction of an Arbitral Tribunal [AT] to join and implead non-signatories to an arbitration agreement post reference of disputes by a court. The appellants would contend that an AT does not stand vested with the authority or jurisdiction to implead parties who may have neither been signatories to an arbitration agreement nor parties to proceedings before a referring court. The challenge is principally founded on the absence of a specific conferral of power as discernible from the provisions of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [Act] upon an AT. They would further urge that the 'alter ego' or 'group of companies' doctrines which have been occasionally invoked to join third parties can be resorted to only by courts. According to them, those precepts are not available to be independently adopted by an AT to implead additional parties. The appellants would urge that the AT is bound by the order of a referring court and which must be accepted as defining the contours of its jurisdiction including the parties between whom alone proceedings may be drawn. According to the appellants, since arbitration is founded upon 'party consent' it would be wholly incorrect to recognise a power inhering in the AT to join non- signatories.

2. The respondents, on the other hand, argue that the provisions of the Act must be interpreted so as to enable the AT to effectively and conclusively resolve all disputes. They would submit that the provisions of the Act when interpreted bearing in mind the scheme of the statute and its resolve to construct arbitration as an effective alternate dispute resolution mechanism would lead one to the irresistible conclusion that the AT must be recognised to have all the powers that may otherwise inhere in and be resorted to by courts in general. They thus commend that the Court should recognise the power to implead as inherently vesting in the AT.

3. While in the facts of the present appeal, the Sole Arbitrator entered the reference pursuant to an order passed by this Court on a petition under Section 11 of the Act, the Court notes that the question of the power to join is one which could arise either where a tribunal comes to be constituted with the consent of parties as also when it is formed pursuant to an order passed by a referring court. The opinion which the Court proposes to render hereinafter would cover the twin contingencies noticed above.

B. ESSENTIAL FACTS

4. In order to set out the context in which the aforenoted issues arise, it would be apposite to notice the following material facts. The respondent nos. 8 and 9, G.R. Singhal and Pista Devi, are the family patriarchs with the various respondents arrayed herein being engaged in the family business which was conducted through the agency of three companies, namely, Taurus India Limited [Taurus India], Taurus Polymers Pvt. Ltd. and Tauras Englobe Ltd.

5. In order to lend clarity to the position of parties as existing before the Sole Arbitrator and in the lead appeal being ARB.A. 5/2022, the Court deems it expedient to extract the following chart: -