The Arbitrator has jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes arising from consolidated claims if the parties treated them as a single transaction, and the award is not subject to interference under Section 34.

ORDER :

P. B. Balaji, J.

This Original Petition has been filed under Sections 34(2)(a)(iv) &34(2)(b)(ii) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 challenging the final award passed by the Arbitral Tribunal dated 30.12.2019.

2.The petitioner herein in the present Original Petition is the respondent and the respondent in this Original Petition is the claimant before the Arbitral Tribunal.

3.The brief facts of the case are as follows:

The claimant is in the business of construction for several years. The respondent was intending to construct two multi storied buildings, namely Blocks A and B @ KG Signature City, situated at 200 Feet New Bye-pass Road, Adayalampattu Village, Ambattur Taluk, Thiruvallur District. In this connection, the respondent floated a tender for executing of construction of the Civil, RCC and other general builder's work and miscellaneous works such as roads, drains, compound wall gates, U.G. Sump, ramp, STP, etc., in the said project. The claimant was the successful bidder and was awarded the contract, pursuant to which an agreement dated 31.01.2011 was entered into for completion of Block B for a total value of Rs.19,47,49,610.05/- and in respect of Block A, an agreement dated 31.03.2011 was entered into for a total value of Rs.19,47,49,610.05/-. The claimant also deposited a corporate guarantee for a sum of Rs.50,00,000/- for each of the Blocks.

4.According to the claimant, the project was successfully completed and final bills were also certified by the developer on 24.05.2016. Though the claimant made several requests for settlement of the dues, the developer evaded payment and had raised debit notes for a sum of Rs.1,45,72,486/-. In view of the dispute regarding the amount payable to the claimant, the parties went to arbitration. A Sole Arbitrator was appointed by this Court in Section 11 application. The claimant made a claim for Rs.3,68,63,460/- towards the amounts outstanding and payable by the developer. The developer besides filing his statement of defense also filed a counter claim.

5.A specific contention is raised that in the Section 11 application, a reference was only in respect of the disputes that arose in respect of Block B i.e., agreement dated 31.01.2011. In respect of Block A, there was a separate agreement between the parties which contain an arbitration clause and in the absence of reference of the disputes in respect of Block A, the learned Arbitrator had no jurisdiction to go into the consolidated claim made by the claimant. The developer also disputed the claim on the basis of the retention money being already factored and consequently, the claim itself being baseless. The learned Sole Arbitrator specifically went into the said objection raised by the developer that there were two independent agreements and when the reference was only arising out of one agreement dated 31.01.2011 and without any reference to the second agreement dated 31.03.2011 whether the claim made by the respondent herein in respect of both the agreements was maintainable. The Sole Arbitrator, in fact framed a specific issue whether the claimant is entitled to all or any of the claims set out in the claim statement, with specific reference to two different Blocks covered by two independent agreements and found that Ex.C2, final bill dated 21.05.2016 which was certified by the developer was a consolidated bill covering both the Blocks A and B. The learned Arbitrator also decided the preliminary objection under Section 16(9) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act and held that when the petitioner herein, namely the developer had issued a collective certified bill in respect of the entire work carried out in both the Blocks A and B. The claim made in respect of both the Blocks before the learned Arbitrator would be maintainable.

6.Though the specific challenge was made even before the learned Arbitrator that the dispute ought to have been referred to the Project Management Consultant (PMC) first and only thereafter,