The impugned award was set aside as it was found to be in contravention of fundamental policy of Indian law and vitiated by patent illegality.

(Prayer: This original petition is preferred under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 seeking to set aside the impugned award of the learned Arbitrator dated 30.03.2018 insofar as it rejects the prayer A of the petitioner made in the arbitration proceedings and pass such further or other orders as may be deemed necessary in the interest of justice.)

1. Instant 'Original Petition' ('O.P' for brevity) has been filed assailing an Arbitral Award dated 30.03.2018 (hereinafter 'impugned award' for brevity) made by an 'Arbitral Tribunal' ('AT' for brevity) constituted by a Sole Arbitrator.

2. Instant O.P has been filed under section 34 of 'The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996' (hereinafter 'A and C Act' for brevity). In the scheme of A and C Act, Section 34 is slotted under Chapter VII captioned 'RECOURSE AGAINST ARBITRAL AWARD'. A perusal of Section 34 also reveals that recourse to a Court against an arbitral award under section 34 of A and C Act may be made by an 'application'. Also to be noted, caption to section 34 itself reads 'APPLICATION FOR SETTING ASIDE ARBITRAL AWARD'. Be that as it may, a legal proceeding which is in the nature of recourse against an arbitral award, is being assigned the nomenclature 'Original Petition' in the Registry of this Court and therefore, instant proceedings are being referred to as 'O.P', for the sake of convenience and clarity.

3. Sole Petitioner before this Court in instant O.P is a juristic person, i.e., a private limited company, which goes by the name 'Chennai Bunkering Terminal Private Limited' and the same shall hereinafter be referred to as 'Contractor' for the sake of clarity and convenience. Lone Respondent before this Court is the 'Board of Trustees, Chennai Port Trust' and respondent shall hereinafter be referred to as 'Port Trust' for the sake of convenience and clarity.

4. It is necessary to set out short facts for appreciating this order and the same is done under the caption 'Factual Matrix' infra.

5. FACTUAL MATRIX :

(a) Port Trust with a view to develop Barge handling facility at Chennai Port through private sector participation issued a tender in January 2012, inviting applications seeking Request for Qualification (RFQ) from interested parties. This tender was to put up Barge handling facility with a project capacity of 1.35 Million MT at the Chennai port with capability to accommodate vessel/barge capacity of 4000 MT Dead Weight Tonnage (DWT) with a jetty of size which shall be not less than 150 meters in terms of length and 15 meters in terms of width. In response to this tender floated by Port Trust, Contractor submitted an application dated 20.03.2012. After evaluation, Contractor was found to satisfy pre-qualification requirements.

(b) This Court is informed that this construction is on what is known as PPP Module and is on BOT basis. Elaborating on this, this Court was informed that 'PPP' stands for 'Public Private Partnership' and 'BOT' stands for 'Build Operate Transfer'. This court was informed that PPP Module on BOT basis means that the contractor who builds the concerned project would operate the same for 30 years in partnership with the Port Trust with a revenue share module and at the end of 30 years, the built structure will be transferred by the contractor to the Port Trust. It was submitted that this is to encourage private partnership and also to ensure that development in port trust takes place by involving expert private contractors/entrepreneurs.

(c) Thereafter, Contractor and other bidders who were found to be qualified, were furnished with a detailed project report, which inter-alia contains details of volume of business that may be attracted on successful implementation of the project. This shall hereinafter be referred to as 'said project'.

(d) It can be culled out from the case file placed before this Court that there are several technical details with regard to said project. After several rounds of discussion, Contractor a