Court upheld the principle that ongoing arbitration proceedings preclude intervention by the court in lease disputes between parties.

ORDER

Chandra Dhari Singh, J. (Oral)

1. The instant petition under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter "Arbitration Act") has been filed on behalf of the petitioner seeking inter alia the following reliefs:

"(a) Pass an ex-parte ad-interim order directing the Respondents, its agents and affiliates to deposit a sum of Rs. 1,60,25,013 being the rent and penalty chargeable under the Agreement but excluding interest and other charges, before this Hon'ble Court, securing the financial interest of the Petitioner with respect to the disbursal of the rent duly payable by the Respondents to the Petitioner;

(b) In the alternative, pass an ex parte ad interim order restraining the Respondents, their respective directors, servants, officers and or agents from disposing of assets stated in Schedule I of this petition in any manner directly and/or indirectly, voluntarily and/or involuntarily, transferring, conveying, alienating dealing with, creating third party rights and or otherwise encumbering or further encumbering the same until the completion of arbitration proceedings;

(c) Direct the Respondents to provide a list of both movable and immovable properties owned by the Respondents before this Hon'ble Court and as a consequence of such a disclosure, pass an interim order restraining the Respondents, their respective directors, servants, officers and or agents from disposing off the movable and immovable assets so disclosed in any manner directly and/or indirectly, voluntarily and/or involuntarily, transferring, conveying, alienating dealing with, creating third party rights and or otherwise encumbering the same until the completion of arbitration proceedings; and

(d) Pass an ex-parte ad-interim order directing the Respondents, its agents and affiliates to handover the vacant and peaceful possession of the Property to the Petitioner and deposit the keys of the Property before this Hon'ble Court;"

2. The petitioner is a society registered under the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002 set up with the object to promote co-operative marketing of agricultural produce to benefit the farmers. The respondent no. 1 is a partnership concern running cold storage and ice factory, where respondent no. 2 and 3 are partners.

3. The petitioner issued tender dated 19th July 2017 inviting bids for operating, maintaining and managing the property comprising of a Multi Commodity Pack House/Cold Storage at Tansarmal, Umernala and Maherakhapa, Sausar, along with 11 pre-engineering building collection centres in Chindwara District, Madhya Pradesh. The respondents were the highest bidders furnishing their financial and technical bids to the tune of Rs. 1,54,250/- per month, adding up to a total of Rs. 18,51,000/- per annum alongwith the GST applicable.

4. The petitioner issued a Letter of Interest on 1st September 2017 on the terms of Request for Proposal (hereinafter "RFP") which was accepted by the respondents vide communication dated 6th September 2017 with the RFP being counter signed and, accordingly, a Lease Agreement was entered into on 14th September 2017.

5. The parties also agreed to refer to arbitration in the event of any dispute between them. On 28th November 2017, the parties entered into an Addendum to the Lease Agreement for handing over 7 Motor Vehicles and 2 Refrigerated Vans to the respondent without any extra fee, with the precondition that the respondents would be liable to deposit road tax with the concerned transport authority.

6. The petitioner handed over the po