The court upheld the arbitral tribunal's authority to extend timelines for submitting pleadings in the interest of justice, reaffirming the procedural nature of the ICA Rules.

JUDGMENT :

MANOJ JAIN, J.

1. Petitioner is claimant before the learned Arbitral Tribunal and takes exception to order dated 11.07.2025 whereby it’s request seeking closure of right of respondent to file Statement of Defence (SoD) and/or Counter-Claim has not been acceded to.

2. According to claimant, the Arbitral Proceedings commenced in terms of Rule 15 of Rules of Domestic Commercial Arbitration of the Indian Council of Arbitration (in short “ICA” Rules) 2024, by giving a notice of request for arbitration to the Registrar of the ICA, as well as to the Respondent. Such notice of request for arbitration was, inter alia, accompanied with the Statement of Claim (SoC).

3. The Registrar, in terms of Rule 18 (a) of ICA Rules sent Statement of Claim (SoC) along with the requisite documents to respondent on 06.12.2024. As per ICA Rules, the respondent had time till 06.01.2025 to file SoD and/or counter claim, if any. Respondent, instead, sought extension of another period of 30 days which was granted by ICA vide e-mail dated 07.01.2025.

4. Thus, the respondent was required to file SoD by 05.02.2025.

5. The grievance of the petitioner is to the effect that despite said extension, no SoD was filed and rather respondent sent another request for extension and sought time period of another 12 weeks to file SoD.

6. ICA constituted Arbitral Tribunal and communicated to the parties that 12.04.2025 had been fixed as first date of hearing before the learned Arbitral Tribunal.

7. Admittedly, the Statement of Defence (SoD) and Counter-Claim were, eventually, filed on 14.04.2025.

8. The objection of the petitioner/claimant is to the effect that such period could not have been extended beyond the time-line stipulated under Rule 18(a) of ICA Rules which reads as under:-

“Rule 18 (a)

On receipt of the application together with the claim statement, the Registrar shall send to the other Party (Respondent) a copy of the claim statement and attached documents and ask such other party to furnish within thirty days or within any extended date not exceeding thirty days, a defense statement setting out his case accompanied by all documents and information in support of or bearing on the matter.”

9. Thus, as per claimant, as per said Rule, any such respondent was entitled to initial period of 30 days, extendable by another period not exceeding thirty days.

10. Learned counsel for claimant also refers to Section 2 (8) and Section 25 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act which read as under:-

“(8) Where this Part—

(a) refers to the fact that the parties have agreed or that they may agree, or (b) in any other way refers to an agreement of the parties, that agreement shall include any arbitration rules referred to in that agreement.”

………………… …………………

“25. Default of a party.—Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, where, without showing sufficient cause,—

(a) the claimant fails to communicate his statement of claim in accordance with sub-section (1) of section 23, the arbitral tribunal shall terminate the proceedings;

(b) the respondent fails to communicate his statement of defence in accordance with sub-section (1) of section 23, the arbitral tribunal shall continue the proceedings without treating that failure in itself as an admission of the allegations by the claimant 3 [and shall have the discretion to treat the right of the respondent to file such statement of defence as having been forfeited].

(c) a party fails to appear at an oral hearing or to produce documentary evidence, the arbitral tribunal may continue the proceedings and make the arbitral award on the evidence before it.”

11. It is argued that there was never any agreement between the parties for further extension of time and, therefore, learned Tribunal was not competent to grant any further extension and to condone any delay beyond the scope of said Rule 18(a).

12. Since the learned Tribunal has dismissed the abovesaid app