The court's decision emphasizes the limited jurisdiction of the court under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and the principle that the court does not sit in appeal over an arbitral award.

JUDGMENT

Rekha Palli, J. (Oral)--The present petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (the Act) seeks to assail the arbitral award dated 28.10.2022 passed by the learned Arbitrator as rectified on 09.02.2023.

2. Vide the impugned award, the learned Arbitral Tribunal has after coming to the conclusion that respondent could not be held liable for tampering of the meter or seals or any internal part of the metering skid installed in the respondent's premises rejected the petitioner's claim against the respondent for damages of Rs.1.62 Crores.

3. Before dealing with submissions of the learned counsel for the petitioner, the brief factual matrix as is necessary for adjudication of the present petition may be noted.

4. The petitioner, a Central public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is inter alia engaged in the business of providing natural gas through its country vide pipeline projects. On the other hand, the respondent is a firm engaged in the business of manufacturing of glass and glass items using a gas based furnace and is running a factory in District Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh.

5. On 09.10.1996, the petitioner entered into an agreement with the respondent for supply of gas to the respondent and accordingly a metering skid was installed at the premises of the respondent, for billing purpose. The agreement was extended from time to time and consequently the petitioner continued to supply gas to the respondent.

6. It is the common case of the parties that on 11.11.2004, the turbine meter in the metering skid installed at the respondent's premises was replaced by the petitioner's officials. The original turbine meter was sent to a company known M/s Rockwin Flow Meter Pvt Ltd. for inspection and calibration. A similar exercise was again carried out on 28.01.2005 when the turbine meter was again changed and sent for inspection to the aforesaid company. Based on the reports received from the said company that the turbine meter had been tampered, the petitioner after issuing a show cause notice, discontinued the supply of gas to the respondent, and also demanded a sum of Rs.1.62 Crores from the respondent on account of the tampering of the meter.

7. Being aggrieved by the disconnection of its gas connection, the respondent approached the Allahabad High Court by way of a writ petition which was disposed with a direction to the petitioner to decide the respondent's pending application for restoration of his gas connection. Upon its application being rejected, the respondent invoked arbitration raising eight claims. During arguments before the learned Arbitrator, the respondent however pressed only claim no.1 wherein it had sought a declaration that there was no tampering of the meters at its end. In response whereof, the petitioner also raised two counter claims before the learned Arbitrator seeking a direction against the respondent to pay a sum of Rs.1.62 Crores. The learned Arbitrator vide the impugned award has allowed claim no.1 raised by the respondent by holding that the respondent could not be held guilty of any tampering of the turbine meters and has consequently, rejected the petitioner's counter claim.

8. In support of the petition, learned counsel for the petitioner seeks to contend that the impugned award is perverse and against public policy as the learned Arbitrator had wrongly placed the onus of proving that the meter had been tempered by the respondent on the petitioner. He submits that once it was evident from the report of M/s Rockwin Flow Meter Pvt Ltd. that the turbine meter had been repeatedly tampered, the respondent ought to have been directed to prove that the meter was not tampered by it. He further submits that the learned Arbitrator has also ignored the terms of the agreement between the parties by rejecting the inspection reports from Rockwin Flow Meter Pvt Ltd. which clearly showed that the meters had been tampered. He, therefore, conten