The main legal point established in the judgment is the determination of supervisory jurisdiction under Section 34 of the A and C Act based on the juridical seat and exclusive jurisdiction of the supervisory Court, as guided by the principles laid down in the Indus Mobile and BGS SGS Soma cases.

ORDER :

Captioned 'Original Petition' ('OP' for the sake of brevity) has been listed before me under the cause list caption 'FOR MAINTAINABILITY' owing to doubts regarding territorial jurisdiction of this Court qua supervisory Court under Section 34 of 'The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (Act No.26 of 1996)', hereinafter 'A and C Act' for the sake of brevity.

2. The maintainability note placed before me by the Registry, reads as follows :

3. Mr. M. Sriram, learned counsel on record for petitioner in captioned OP is before me. Notwithstanding the endorsement made at the time of representing the papers, learned counsel very fairly submitted that the legal position under arbitration law is different as Sections 16 to 21 of 'The Code of Civil Procedure, 1908' ('CPC' for the sake of brevity), operate in a different realm.

4. This takes us to Section 20 of the A and C Act. Hon'ble Supreme Court in Indus Mobile case, being Indus Mobile Distribution Private Limited Vs. Datawind Innovations Private Limited and Others reported in (2017) 7 SCC 678, had held that the juridical seat will determine the territorial jurisdiction of the supervisory Court and the jurisdiction of the supervisory Court will be exclusive jurisdiction. In the instant case, arbitration agreement between the parties being arbitration agreement within the meaning of section 2(1)(b) read with Section 7 of A and C Act is in the form of two clauses, namely Clauses 20.0 and 21.0 in an agreement dated 07.10.2010 between the parties. These two clauses, namely clauses 20 and 21 read as follows :

'20.0 ARBITRATION: Any arbitration proceedings in connection with this contract shall be governed by the provisions of current Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act and the place of arbitration shall be at Palani.

21.0 LEGAL JURISDICTION: Only the courts at Palani, Dindigul and Madurai shall have jurisdiction for any suit or proceedings regarding the matter arising in any respect under this contract, even though any part of the cause of action may arise outside Tamilnadu.'

5. Therefore, it is clear that Courts specified in the clauses supra alone will be supervisory jurisdictional Courts and not this Court.

6. Relevant paragraphs in Indus Mobile case are paragraphs 5, 6, relevant paragraphs in BGS SGS Soma [BGS SGS Soma JV vs. NHPC Ltd. reported in (2020) 3 MLJ 336 (SC)] are paragraphs 97 to 101 and the same read as follows :

'Paragraphs 5 and 6 of Indus Mobile case:

5. Both the applications were disposed of by the impugned judgment [Datawind Innovations (P) Ltd. v. Indus Mobile Distribution (P) Ltd., 2016 SCC OnLine Del 3744]. First and foremost, it was held by the impugned judgment that as no part of the cause of action arose in Mumbai, only the courts of three territories could have jurisdiction in the matter, namely, Delhi and Chennai (from and to where goods were supplied), and Amritsar (which is the registered office of the appellant company). The court therefore held that the exclusive jurisdiction clause would not apply on facts, as the courts in Mumbai would have no jurisdiction at all. It, therefore, determined that Delhi being the first Court that was approached would have jurisdiction in the matter and proceeded to confirm interim order dated 22-9-2015 [Datawind Innovations (P) Ltd. v. Indus Mobile Distribution (P) Ltd., OMP (I) No. 531 of 2015, order dated 22-9-2015 (Del)] and also proceeded to dispose of the Section 11 petition by appointing Justice S.N. Variava, retired Supreme Court Judge, as the sole arbitrator in the proceedings. The judgment recorded that the conduct of the arbitration would be in Mumbai.

6. The learned counsel on behalf of the appellant has assailed the judgment of the Delhi High Court, stating that even if it were to be conceded that no part of the cause of action arose at Mumbai, yet the seat of the arbitration being at Mumbai, courts in Mumbai would have exclusive jurisdiction in all proceedings over the same. According to him, therefore, the im