IMPORTANT POINT
While exercising jurisdiction under Section 37 of the Act, this Court should keep on trucking through a very narrow path confining to the supervisory jurisdiction-The Apex Court has compared this jurisdiction to that of an appeal under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure-Not expected to re-visit or re-analyse the materials again-The Court need only to consider whether the Arbitrator has committed any patent illegality, whether his conclusions were perverse and whether he had made attempts to take a reasonable and plausible approach.

JUDGMENT :

Haripal, J.

This is an appeal preferred under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, hereinafter referred to as 'the Act”, challenging the correctness of the order of the learned II Additional District Judge, Ernakulam in O.P.(Arb) No.1223/2008, an application filed under Section 34 of the Act, whereby the legality of the award passed by the learned Arbitrator in a dispute between the appellant and the respondent was adjudicated in ARC No.2/2006.

2. Appellant was the claimant before the learned Arbitrator. It is a company registered under the Companies Act. It is claimed that it is a reputed advertising agency and also involved in marketing of events. M/s.Leo Activation, a division of the company is handling the business of marketing and production of events. The respondent is a registered Society of medical professionals practicing in the branch of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The materials available before Court indicate that Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Societies of India used to conduct annual conferences. The Annual Conference of 2005 was scheduled to be held at Cochin from 05.01.2006 to 09.01.2006. In connection with its organisation, the appellant company was authorised to garner sponsorship of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical firms. It is the common case that the appellant and the respondent entered into an agreement by which it was agreed that as reward for the services rendered, the appellant will be given commission at the rate of 10% upto sponsorship value of Rs.1 crore, Rs.10 lakhs plus 15% of the amount exceeding sponsorship value between Rs.1 crore and Rs.1.5 crore and Rs.17,50,000/- plus 20% of the amount in excess of Rs.1.5 crores of the sponsorship value. The first agreement was executed in Mumbai on 30.12.2004 following which another agreement on 29.01.2005 at Cochin. The terms and conditions in both the agreements are more or less the same. It is also the common case that periodical interactions were made between the representatives of the appellant and the respondent for assessing the progress achieved in the matter of garnering sponsorship. However, it has come out that towards the end of October 2005, i.e. about two months prior to the conduct of the conference, the respondent felt that the appellant was not securing sponsorship as expected by them and thus, by notice dated 21.10.2005, the agreement was terminated unilaterally with effect from 06.11.2005. Though some steps were taken by the representatives of the appellant to contact the organisers of the respondent and rebuild the trust, that did not yield any result. Following such developments, an air of litigation spread between the parties; the respondent lodged caveat petitions in Ernakulam and Thrissur courts and the appellant filed an application under Section 9 of the Act for attachment of the bank accounts of the respondent. Ultimately, at the instance of the respondent, Hon'ble Mr. Justice R. Bhaskaran, a former Judge of this Court was appointed by this Court as the sole Arbitrator to resolve the disputes between the parties. A claim statement was filed before the Arbitrator, following which a counter statement was filed by the respondent along with a counter claim. Three witnesses were examined on the side of the appellant and Annexures 1 to 16 were marked. The organising secretary of the respondent gave evidence as RW1 and Annexures R1 to R10 were the documents produced by the respondent. After hearing the counsel on both sides, the learned Arbitrator, by the impugned award, allowed the appellant to claim an amount of Rs.4,85,250/- with interest at the rate of 9% from 12.01.2007 till realisation. The counter claim was declined.

3. Aggrieved by the said award the appellant filed O.P.(Arb) No.1223/2008 before the District Court, Ernakulam. The learned II Additional District Judge, by the order dated 04.10.2011 dismissed the petition and now the appellant has impugned that order before this Court und