The court affirmed the claimant's entitlement to reimbursement for the Second Regular Meal at the specified rate, rejecting waiver and estoppel claims, while restoring the Arbitral Award.

JUDGMENT :

NAVIN CHAWLA, J.

1. This set of cross appeals has been filed under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (in short, „A&C Act‟), challenging the Order dated 13.08.2024 (hereinafter referred to as „Impugned Order‟) passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court in OMP (COMM.)411/2022, OMP (COMM.)47/2023, OMP (COMM.) 517/2022, OMP (COMM.) 500/2022, OMP (COMM.) 46/2023, OMP (COMM.) 495/2022, OMP (COMM.) 504/2022, OMP (COMM.) 447/2022, OMP (COMM.) 506/2022, OMP (COMM.) 505/2022, OMP (COMM.) 502/2022, OMP (COMM.) 45/2023, OMP (COMM.) 446/022, allowing, in part, the said petitions filed by the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as, „IRCTC‟) under Section 34 of the A&C Act, by partially setting aside the Arbitral Award dated 27.04.2022 passed by the learned Sole Arbitrator (hereinafter referred to as the „Impugned Award‟).

2. Both the parties to the petitions, that is, IRCTC and M/s Brandavan Food Products Ltd., being aggrieved of the parts of the impugned order, have challenged the same in form of this batch of cross-appeals.

3. In these are cross-appeals, IRCTC shall be referred to as the „respondent‟, while M/s Brandavan Food Products Ltd. shall be referred to as the „claimant‟.

4. There were a total of 13 claims filed by the claimant before the learned Sole Arbitrator, with respect to 13 different trains (Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duranto trains). As similar background facts are involved in the cross-appeals, for the sake of convenience and brevity, the facts from FAO(OS)(COMM) 246/2024 are being referred to.

Brief Background of Facts:

5. The claimant had filed the Statement of Claim before the learned Sole Arbitrator, contending therein that the respondent is a public listed Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) working under the aegis of the Ministry of Railways, Government of India, whereas the claimant is a private contractor providing catering services on the trains run by the Indian Railways.

6. In terms of the Catering Policy of 2010 issued by the Railway Board (hereinafter referred to as „2010 Policy‟), the tenders for providing catering services on trains were called for on the basis of bids for License Fee payable by the Contractor to the respondent, while the Catering/Apportionment charges were to be reimbursed to the Contractor for providing such catering services as calculated on the basis of Catering Tariff fixed by the Railway Board. The Catering/Apportionment charges are fixed by way of Commercial Circulars issued by the Ministry of Railways, through the Railway Board, and are applicable to all existing licenses/contracts as well as those which are to be issued in the future.

7. In pursuance of the said policies and practices, the Northern Railways published a tender, inviting bids on 27.05.2013 for the provision of Catering Services in, inter alia, the New Delhi-Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express, Train No. 12423-24 for a period of 5+5 years (hereinafter referred to as, „Subject Tender‟).

8. At the relevant time, the Catering/Apportionment Charges for the said tender had been calculated on the basis of the Catering Tariff fixed in the year 1999 vide Letter dated 27.05.1999 (hereinafter referred to as, „1999 Policy‟) and was a part of the tender document itself.

9. The claimant, on 27.06.2013, submitted its Bid qua the Subject Tender and quoted Rs. 35,63,00,000/- as the License Fee for a period of 5 years.

10. Prior to opening the bids for the Subject Tender, the Ministry of Railways, through the Railway Board, issued a Commercial Circular No. 63/2013 dated 09.10.2013 (hereinafter referred to as, „Circular dated 09.10.2013‟), whereby a new concept of „Combo Meal‟ was introduced by the Railway Board as a measure to reduce food wastage for the meal being served for dinner. It provided that instead of a second Regular Meal/full meal being served in the course of the journey, only a Combo Meal, which was a smaller meal consisting of lesser items and quantity of foo