JUDGMENT :

1. In all these petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners have prayed that this Court be pleased to issue a writ of prohibition and/or any other appropriate writ, order or direction restraining the Court of Additional District Judge, Kutch, at Gandhidham from entertaining and proceeding further with the applications filed by the concerned respondents under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, (‘the Act’ for short) by which, the respondents have challenged the arbitral awards in the respective arbitration proceedings.

2. The question that is raised in these petitions is whether the District Court is having the jurisdiction to entertain an application under Section 34 of the Act for challenging an award when the award is an outcome of an International Commercial Arbitration admittedly held in London with an express provision in the Arbitration Clause embodied in the concerned agreement to the effect that the arbitration shall be governed by the English law.

3. For the purposes of this judgement, since the facts are common, facts of Special Civil Application No.285 of 2010 are considered.

3.1 The petitioner is a foreign company constituted and registered in consonance with the statute governing the field thereof in Singapore. The registered office is at Singapore. The company deals in business of agricultural product.

3.2 The respondent is a partnership firm. On 23.05.2007, a contract came to be executed between the petitioner and the respondent, by which, the petitioner agreed to purchase specified quantity of Indian Yellow Soybean Meal. The contract contained a provision under the heading ‘Shipping Terms’. Clause 7 provided that all other terms and conditions were to be as per GAFTA 119, that arbitration as per GAFTA 125 was to take place in London with English law to apply.

3.3 After the execution of the contract, a dispute arose between the petitioner and the respondent on account of non-delivery of goods. Invoking Clause 7 of the shipping terms, the dispute was referred to the Arbitral Tribunal as per GAFTA 125 at London. An award was passed in the Arbitral Proceedings which proceeded in the meeting of GAFTA at London on 29.10.2008. It was declared that the petitioner was entitled to receive and recover from the respondent a sum of USD 1,26,000 along with interest.

3.4 Aggrieved by the award, the respondent preferred an appeal before the Board of Appeal of Grain and Feed Trade Association, London. After hearing the appeal, the Board of Appeal delivered an order dated 09.09.2009 upholding substantially the award of the Tribunal. The respondent aggrieved by the aforesaid appellate award, has preferred an application under Section 34 of the Act before the Additional District Court, Kutch at Gandhidham. On presentation of such application the learned Incharge Additional District Judge, Kutch, at Gandhidham, passed an order dated 07.10.2009, admitting the application of the respondent and issuing notice to the petitioner. Aggrieved by this course of action, the petitioner has approached this Court.

4. Mr.Dhaval C. Dave learned Senior Advocate appearing for the petitioners would make the following submissions:

4.1 Inviting the Court’s attention to Section 2(2) of the Arbitration Act and reading the same, Mr.Dave would submit that it is clear that Part-I of the Act applies to the arbitration taking place in India. In other words therefore, when an arbitration takes place outside India, Part-I of the Act has no application. Reading the terms of the contract and the arbitration clause, Mr.Dave would submit that the arbitration was in accordance with the GAFTA Arbitration Rules, No.125 the provisions of the Arbitration Act, 1995 was applicable, the juridical seat of arbitration was England and it was to take place in London with English law to apply. Clearly therefore, since the arbitration did not take place in India, the applications are per-se not maintainable. The Court in whi