The captioned writ petitions are materially connected in respect of orders passed by the Arbitrator in proceedings under the provisions of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as 'Act 1996' for short) holding that, the arbitral proceedings are maintainable. Therefore, I heard them together and propose to pass this common judgment. The predominant contention advanced by the learned Counsel for the petitioner is that from the order passed by the Arbitrator, there is no remedy available to the petitioner and therefore, since the Arbitrator has all the trappings of an authority functioning under a statute, the writ petition is maintainable under law. However, on a perusal of sub sections 5 and 6 of Section 16 of Act, 1996, it is clear that when the Arbitrator passes any order during the pendency of the arbitration in respect of the maintainability of the arbitration proceedings, the remedy available to the petitioner is to challenge the order along with the challenge to the award, under Section 34 of Act 1996. In this context it is only appropriate that the said provisions of section 16 of Act 1996 dealing with the competence of arbitral tribuna