The Honble Chief Justice:

These are appeals from an order passed by S.Rajeswaran, J. The question at issue is whether leave under Clause 12 of the Letters Patent was at all necessary for filing an application before this Court under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, hereinafter for brevitys sake referred as to as the "Act", where a part of the cause of action has arisen within the jurisdiction of this Court, but the rest has arisen outside.

2. The facts are that respondents 1 to 3 are the majority shareholders of the fourth respondent-M/s. Gordon Woodrroffe Limited. The fourth respondent is the absolute owner of several immovable properties including the properties situate at Chennai. The fourth respondent, of which respondents 1to 3 are the majority shareholders, being desirous of disposing of its immovable properties, floated a proposal in the form of an Information Memorandum in September, 2005 wherein the modality adopted for such disposal was by way of sale of shareholding of respondents 1 to 3 who held 93.47% shares in the fourth respondent. The appellant-M/s.Dynasty Developers Private Limited agreed to purchase the shares of the fourth respondent and the terms of the agreement were reduced into writing under a Share Purchase Agreement dated 21.12.2005. As per the Share Purchase Agreement, the total consideration to be paid was a sum of Rs.238.05 crores. The appellant paid an advance of Rs.34 crores which includes a sum of Rs.9 crores for the non-competing clause executed by the second respondent. The agreement contains an arbitration clause that the disputes between the appellant and respondents 1 to 3 arising out of the contract would be decided by arbitration. Disputes arose between the parties and a reference has been made to the arbitral tribunal in accordance with the agreement.

3. Apprehending that the respondents would act contrary to the Share Purchase Agreement and either deal with or alienate shares and/or properties of the fourth respondent, the appellant preferred three separate applications being O.A. Nos. 452, 453 & 454 of 2006 under Section 9 of the Act for various interim injunctions. The appellant has invoked the jurisdiction of this Court on the ground that the fourth respondent is registered within the jurisdiction of this Court and the shares of the fourth respondent having situs within the jurisdiction of this Court. In short, the appellant alleged that the contract was to be concluded within the jurisdiction of this Court and as such, part of cause of action arose within the local limits of this Court. The respondents 1 to 3 raised a two fold objection to the jurisdiction of this Court. First, on the ground that none of the respondents has a place of business within the local limits of this Court and since the agreement itself was entered into at Bangalore no cause of action arose in Chennai, and therefore, this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the applications filed against them. Secondly, it was contended that the jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked on the ground that part of cause of action has arisen within the jurisdiction of this Court and the rest has arisen outside. Therefore, these applications could not have made in this Court without obtaining the leave under Clause 12 of the Letters Patent and as such, these applications must be rejected in limine. The fourth respondent, who challenged the maintainability of the applications on the ground that it was not a party to the arbitration clause also raised a preliminary objection of absence of leave under Clause-12 of the Letters Patent.

4. The applications under Section 9 of the Act were decided by S.Rajeswaran, J, and he agreed with the appellant that a part of the cause of action arose within the jurisdiction of this Court. But he proceeded to hold that in order to maintain the applications, it was a pre-condition that leave under Clause-12 of the Letters Patent should have been obtained. As it